The Kitsune and the Jackal
by Hyperjade
Summary: War is hell, and nobody knows it like the inhabitants of Taika and Prokopios. The countries have been warring for centuries, neither historically giving an inch. Different abilities, different species, even, neither side is capable of predicting the other, of turning the tide. But two very powerful beings have the means and the reasons to bring about an end to this pointless war.
1. Chapter One

**Hello, everyone. This is Hyperjade.**

 **Jango: And I'm back!**

 **Amber: I got him to come back peacefully.**

 **Jango: Yeah, by smashing me flat.**

 **Me: A-hem... We have an introduction to do. Anyways, Hello everybody. This is "The Kitsune and the Jackal". This is a mostly unique story, though I am putting a few pokemon-like characters in it, so it qualifies as pokemon fanfiction. Otherwise, some aspects are inspired by entirely different things. However, this story is something I consider almost completely original, and I would wish to share it. Mostly because it won't get out of my head unless I put it on paper. Well, the computer. Well... You understand.**

 **Jango: I don't think they understand.**

 **Amber: Jango, manners.**

 **Jango: Yes, Ma'am.**

 **Me: Anyways, I have to decide whether to juggle this along with my other stories, which I am capable of doing, or putting it off until New Age is done. If you have an opinion about that, please include that opinion in your review. Thank you.**

 **Amber: We hope you enjoy the chapter.**

 **Jango: Let the fun begin!**

* * *

 **The Kitsune and the Jackal Chapter One: The Blue Flame.**

 **Clack.**

"Check."

I scowled as he looked at his side of the board. The bugger. If it wouldn't feel like I was punching myself in a metaphorical manner, I would probably plant my fist on his nose. Maybe my paw, if I wanted some extra power.

Across from me sat a seventeen-year-old boy with shorter hair, looking at the board. His awesome cobalt blue trench coat that was way too big for him laid out behind him in a spread as he idly tapped the corner of his side.

I liked chess. It was a great game. Unfortunately, my friend here thrashed me whenever I asked to play. My green eyes met his identical green eyes. His eyebrow rose, and I turned my attention to the board. It was mate in three. I couldn't defend against it.

I humored him and listened to him say checkmate for what must have been the thousandth time. "You get better every game you play," he told me as he started putting the pieces away.

I was not exactly happy about my loss, so I must plead guilty for grumbling "Isn't worth a damn against you."

The boy gave me a smile. It was a smile I had seen in the mirror, almost identical to it, two years ago. And yet he was different. Certainly older. This kid's looked like he was seventeen since I met him when I was two.

"Years of experience," he replied calmly as he finished putting away the board. He never answered me when I asked 'how many years'.

He stood up to put it away in the little home I had. Well, 'Home' was a single room. A spacious room, and actually quite nice and cushiony, but little trainees like me don't get to live anywhere else but the compound that I lived my life in for a majority of that life.

Don't get me wrong, I was treated just fine, but in addition to formal schooling that I had pretty much finished a few years back, there was also military training that I was put through. It was not going to be long before they set me out.

Because of the whole 'war' thing. I'll explain that later.

My friend brought a bow out from inside his trench coat (don't ask me how he fit it in there) and also a clean rag. He began wiping it down again. The bow was also cobalt blue with a glowing light blue string. Very simplistic. I recalled the first time I questioned him about that.

" _Why do you keep cleaning that thing? It's just a bow."_

" _It's my bow. I like my bow."_

" _But… Ah, whatever."_

Wow. I haven't introduced myself. I'm Gabriel. I'm human at the moment. Slightly shorter than average, dark, short hair and green eyes. Until I became seventeen, I had bloomed relatively late. At least my face was far less rounded at this point. Being nineteen, I was pretty much in prime physical condition.

The kid currently using my chair was the guy that I unofficially bunked with. You'll understand my word choice in a bit. I was due for a visit from some higher ups, and I kind of had to play dumb. You'll understand that in a bit too.

But the boy who looked like my seventeen-year-old self had been with me since I was two, and not because he's a sibling or anything. He's always looked like that my entire life. Actually gave me some insight as to what I would look like eventually during life.

He also helped me understand what kind of shit I was going to go through if I let the buggers who were coming to visit me control me. Play dumb. That was the plan. I glanced quickly to where I knew the hidden camera was, that I had let them install to help them try (and fail) to figure out why odd things in the room kept happening that they would not accept my explanation for.

"Company in ten." the boy said, putting away his stuff into the folds of his trench coat again, no evidence remaining that they even existed in the first place. He walked over to the door and leaned against the wall next to it. "Go for it, kid."

"You realize how young you look, right?" I rolled my eyes at him. He didn't answer me as the door opened and a man and a woman stepped in. These were not the people to worry about. These guys weren't bad at all. The higher ups, though, you took care to only do as you were told and nothing extra. Gods forbid you did anything nice for them unbidden, lest they think you more valuable and sic more dangerous tasks on you.

And they knew it, too. They knew why people didn't do anything for them out of the kindness of their hearts. There were too many negatives for that to ever happen. They didn't care.

"Hey, Gabe." the twenty-five-year-old man greeted me with a respectful nod. Being 'unique' as they call me had something to do with it, I reckon. More on that later.

The more formal woman nodded at the fact that I was ready, as I always was, and she said yet again: "I shall inform the leaders of your upcoming visit." and she turned away.

This gave me the chance to shake my head and gesture at her without words. " _Hopeless, isn't she?"_

" _Absolutely."_ the man's nod said. No actual language passed between us, but it was easy enough to understand. The woman leaped forward, her body shrinking and her clothes melting into her form as she grew fur and her face elongated. Now a common house cat, she walked off and into one of those tunnels for small animals that allowed messengers to travel between rooms faster. It was useful but honestly more for keeping everyone informed or even safe if we are under attack.

"They changed the room again." the man informed me, handing me a slip of paper that told me to go to conference room five. I shook my head in amusement. It was a different damn room every time they sent somebody after me.

"Yeah… It's always been a different sector recently. Mind leading me this time?" I asked, handing the paper back.

"That **is** my job."

I grinned. The guy almost never had to lead me anywhere. It was a surprisingly easy job for him to take on, especially because he could have been stuck with much different stuff to have to do.

he rolled his eyes and walked me off. I waved into the room, where my friend had been seeing me off. It was actually a lengthy trip, considering the size of the compound. If I told you that the guy I was going to meet was an aging man with a formal posture and equally formal attire, would you tell me it seemed like I was in for a serious discussion or would you groan about the sheer cliche of the fact that I was going to meet a guy I was not supposed to be trusting and he happened to be in control of a bunch of stuff? It was in so many movies.

Anyways, this old man was one of the leaders of the country. Our country. Prokopios. Not too large, really. It's progressed rather quickly, however.

"First question," I said as I walked through the door. "The automatic doors. Most have visible sensors. Not these rooms with the fancy interior. I guess this is considered a place where 'more important' meetings take place?"

Part one was a success. The man was already sighing. "Please sit down, Gabriel," he said. It was no request, that much I knew. So I did sit down.

He didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. He was waiting, and because of that, so was I. You don't cross the people in charge openly. It turned out that he was waiting for a bunch of people using computers and such. They had their laptops and everything.

At least the white room had a little more color.

"We wished to discuss your future." the first man said. Given that he sat directly opposite me, it felt as though I should treat this as a proper discussion rather than just sitting there and nodding.

"I'm listening." Okay. Maybe I should have been more formal. It was a bit difficult after watching the bloke imply that I had a choice when we all knew I didn't with the word 'wished'.

He paused. "During the entirety of your life, your unique beast form has interested us. Your initial, more destructive abilities, along with your multiple methods of controlling your environments. Your blue flame streams… And the hidden psychokinesis."

My eyebrow rose. "What psychokinesis?" I asked. Again. I've gotten really good at asking that. As I expected, one of the laptop screens was turned to me, and I could see me losing in a game of chess.

The other side of the board was empty and my friend's pieces were moving on their own. I shook my head.

"Just because you can't see him and the camera can't see him doesn't mean he's not there." I refuted.

I only received skeptical looks. I really didn't like that my friend for most of my life has been basically inaudible, invisible, and intangible to everybody other than myself. "I understand that you have a legitimate belief that your little friend, who happens to look precisely like you, truly exists, but this is childish. Perhaps you use the concept to explain what you do in your own mind."

I really, **really** wanted to roll my eyes.

"There is another, entirely different possibility of course, which would help explain your use of that image as your reasoning behind your actions." the man continued, bringing my interest level up a few notches. "When you were ten, you were given ample time to create a detailed drawing of your 'friend' and used five days getting it just right. When you turned seventeen, you were nearly the spitting image of this. It is possible—and far more valuable—that you viewed a version of yourself from your own timeline." the old man leaned forward. "Is it possible that you can see into time?"

I couldn't help it. I started laughing. Really hard. That had to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Once I calmed myself down, I had a seriously valid point. "That guy may look like me, but did I ever wear that blue trench coat?" I asked. "No. I didn't. And he can make physical contact with me. I can't move my own body around with psychic abilities. Nobody can without decades of training. Psychic stuff doesn't come instinctively. I've learned that in the many, many classes I've been put through. You refuse to accept that I've got a friend living with me that can only be seen, heard, or touched by me alone. I have to ask: Is that because you can't comprehend a being that only exists according to one person, yet still technically exists?

I was proud of myself. Big words everywhere. I might make a habit of that. "I cannot comprehend something that does not exist." the man said stiffly. That sobered me up a bit. I had annoyed him. You don't want to go too far if you are trying to annoy somebody in power. The next step was to convince them that I wanted **nothing** to do with their little program.

"That's fine with me," I said truthfully "The fact is that without my aura-fire, I can't move things around. On top of that, you know for a fact that when you tested the levels of energy coming off from me that my human form has absolutely nothing but my physical strength going for it."

"You have demonstrated numerous times that you **can**." the dense old man replied stubbornly, his men, whom I was doubting the free will of, started showing me recording after recording of things moving about on their own whether I was looking at them or not. Some of them I barely remembered. I did remember that the bow seemed to be just as hidden as the rest of what these dolts thought was an imaginary friend.

I have muscle and power over a source of energy called 'aura'. That's about it.

They gave up and put them away in unison. I was seriously thinking that the laptop guys could be robots. "If you insist on being difficult in this manner, I feel that I must change topics to something we can agree on." the geezer decided.

" _My beast form."_

"Your unique beast form." the man continued. "No animal we have seen or know of is like it in the slightest, and you have powers beyond that of a normal animal. You are much stronger, have abilities that all of those around you do not, and are bipedal as well. Your abilities surpass any commander in our army. Your potential is **gigantic**."

I knew where this was going. My apparent insistence on having what they considered an imaginary friend was not going to get me out of this unscathed. No, I had to somehow make them think that me being the best potential warrior they have ever seen just by having a beast form that was both unique and powerful at the same time did not mean I was worth their time. Being bipedal and being versatile also allowed me to hold weapons properly.

I did not say a word. The man in charge continued. "You have a choice," he lied "We have learned that our opponent has changed tactics again. We **need** you to support them, and you have the training to be in combat."

This was not true. They did not need me. Part of the reason this war was pointless was because every advancement other parties from Taika, the other country that for whatever reason we were at war with, made, we had made advancements that matched them. It was stupidly comical. Nobody ever got the advantage. There were deaths, and then both pulled back after realizing it would turn into a bloodbath. That was pretty much ninety percent of war brawls.

I still said nothing, so the man cut straight to the chase. "You can come with me right now, and we will give you a briefing on the plan for the war. Or…" he said, leaning forward again. "You can go back to your room and continue your training until you are needed so badly that we will no longer give you the liberty of choice."

Now it was my turn. My thoughts filled with facts, such as the fact that they would send somebody to grab me within hours of declining, maybe even staging a siege from the other party to get me moving, and would drag me into this war anyways. Facts such as the fact that this man was actually a half decent liar, and the fact that he had given me no actual information right at the moment, which suggested they might throw me in blindly anyways.

"With all due respect…" I said, leaning forward "You already know what my answer is."

He dismissed me quickly. When I exited the door, I swiveled at it closed and put my hand on it to keep it shut. I was strong enough. "What are you doing?" Randal, the man who had walked me here, hissed. I shook my head at him. They would start the discussion about my merits relatively quickly. It's possible the decision of what to do with me could be made right now. I couldn't hear anything at the moment, so…

The process was painless, quick, and almost instinctual. It had taken me years to master the use of it, but eventually, it works out. My arm gathered fur, as did everything else. My hand reformed into a paw in half a second. I instinctively stood on the balls of my feet as my legs changed quickly. My clothes melted into my transformation and my face jutted out into a muzzle. My hearing sharpened as my ears moved and changed so that they were above me, and four appendages stretched into existence behind my head. During all of this, silver conical spikes of metal jutted from my chest and paws. I was stronger, I was faster, I could see more. Hear more.

Perhaps I should explain what I am at this point.

I… We, our species, are both a generic, mutual form with unique distinctions, known as the human form, and then, equally important, is the extra, random form that is different for each person and can be accessed at any time with practice. They are a part of us. Every single person around me can do the same, with a distinct difference. I am… Unique. Most of us have animal forms that already exist. Mine doesn't. It's new.

And by practice, I really mean practicing how to change how you move automatically to work with your changed form. You see tiny children accidentally change forms all the time. Self-control is also important.

My hearing enhanced, I discerned what I was listening to. "What do you think?"

"He acts childish. He's smart. Unbelievably so. Playing up his abilities since he was four. Pretending to know for a fact that his 'friend' exists while he uses abilities he pulls directly in front of me without admitting that he has them and bypassing interrogations."

I froze. What had I done wrong? The fact that I couldn't get him to believe that the younger version of me existed, which, if I hadn't gotten that truth through the bloke's head, it should have at least told him I wasn't mature enough to be in battle… Yet. Instead, he had led himself to believe I was a liar, and a good one.

"He can think on the fly, make things up, and understand when to act as he does. He would be brilliant as a commander. Give him two hours, and then bring him here. Don't bother with trickery; Our little unique will see it coming.

" _Son of a bitch…"_ I thought.

I slipped back as quietly as possible and reformed as my human form. I pulled the other man away, putting my finger to my lips. "I'm in trouble." I revealed quietly as we started taking the path back to my room. "A whole lot of trouble."

"You're not going into battle?" the dense man guessed. I shook my head.

"I'm not going to fight a pointless war." I growled as I walked quickly to my door and opened it. I pointed at him. "I don't need you spreading this around, but it would be fair to say. I've gone through all of this nonsense. I'm not going to fight for a bunch of people who don't even know why they are **forcing others** to fight. I'm outta here as soon as I can be, and I have an hour and roughly fifty minutes to figure out how."

I shut the door in his face and walked over to the bed and pulled a suitcase from underneath it. It was thick, but I could carry it without a problem even burdened with all my things.

"Rough day?" my own voice sounded behind me. I nodded slightly, not willing to banter. A sigh followed as my lifetime friend walked into my vision as I started packing all sorts of clothing in there, for just about any weather, especially cold weather. Fur was great, but sometimes you need something extra. As long as I put in the pre-prepared hole where the chest spike would go. Let's just say mistakes were made years back. Repeated mistakes.

"I have less than two hours to get the hell out of here," I said, "And people are going to try and stop me."

"Will you fight your way out?"

"If I have to. At least fighting to escape has a purpose."

"I have to leave as well."

I frowned and turned to him. "I'm not leaving you behind of course," I stated. He started pacing in a way that **really** worried me. I only pace when I'm so stressed out and trying not to show it that I resort to doing that to show it in a way that isn't cuffing somebody over the head.

"I was called away." he finally stated.

"...What?"

"I was called back home," he revealed, "My family is busy with something, and their focus is divided too much. They need my support, and I've been buggering off here for seventeen years. I've been putting it off."

I had always known very little about this guy who looked like me. I tended not to question him. He knew what he was doing. But… He was also the only guy I really knew. I knew him like I knew myself, which really made sense.

"Hey." I interrupted, grabbing him by the arm. "You've been supporting me for **years**. You're up and leaving now?"

"I have to. There are people's lives I can save," he informed me, confusing me even more "and Zephyr's being lazy as per usual and can't be bothered to move. Besides, You're a big boy. You can handle yourself."

The way he called me boy or kid implied that his age was more than he looked, and considering he hadn't seemed to age in seventeen years, I guess he had more important things to do now that I could handle myself. "You'll get out of here. I can promise you that. And to assure that…" he added, and my eyes widened as glowing wings made of odd floating symbols glowed into existence behind his back. "I'll go ahead and make one hell of an exit."

The 'boy' snapped his fingers, and in a display of power I had never seen him pull at all (he tended to act relatively normal around me), all of the stuff I was going to pack flew into all the bags and those bags were tossed together in a pile. he also took the stuff from my suitcase into a backpack used for carrying things for war stuff, which effectively made it a hiking backpack. I understood. Stuff I wore would sink into my skin as I transformed. A suitcase would not as I was just carrying it. How the distinction was made, I hadn't a clue. Maybe they just made the backpacks a special way or something.

"By the way, that species that you are is called a lucario," he said offhandedly while he picked up the bags and tossed them to me as a cluster of them. I caught it, blinking. I wasn't actually a unique? "Don't get me wrong, they don't exist around here. Nobody on this planet will ever discover one, so for here you're unique."

"When I do this, people will swarm to grab you, thinking it's you who's escaping. Which you are, but I'll be causing the ruckus." my very powerful and knowledgeable doppelganger continued, and then I watched him **jump** up and bash his way through my ceiling!

I gawked as the roof was blasted apart and revealed open sky. I was back in my human form, so it was not as comical as it could have been I think, but… "You… You just…" I stammered.

"Well, get out of here then," he said, before saying: "It felt good raising you, you know. I'm sorry that I have to leave after all these years. Just… Don't get yourself killed, okay?"

and then he soared off at intense speeds and vanished. I got the sense that I might never see him again, and legitimate tears appeared in my eyes. Because of course they did. The guy was my best friend and had indeed treated me like I was his son or something while he raised me. I started calling him my friend solely because he looked like a younger version of me.

I almost no longer cared that there was a giant fucking hole in my roof. I realized how efficient the guy was. If he had stayed any longer, I might have gotten properly emotional. Any shorter and there would have been no explanation. Well, not so much explaining, but I knew it was important, which was enough.

I switched forms once my bags were on, feeling them sink into my transformation. I went to my door and locked it using the normal lock and the chain as well. Just in time, actually, because somebody started banging on the door. "Get out here, Gabriel. **Right. Now**."

"Nah, I'll pass," I said, looking about for an exit. Nothing. Nothing. They started banging on the door, and I quickly held it in place. I had **no exits**. I would have to fight my way out, I knew, and my friend had bailed, leaving a giant freaking hole in my ceiling.

Wait.

Giant freaking hole in my ceiling. I **did** have an exit. I grinned a toothy grin, my muzzle split by my smile. One last gift. And I certainly had the ability. The door cracked behind me as they slammed something heavy into it, so I quickly pulled my cabinet over to take my place in front of it and leaped out onto the roof of the compound.

Shielding my eyes from the sun for a moment, I looked about. I sweatdropped at what I saw. They were shorter, but there was no going on the ground floor. The compound was oddly shaped, with various levels in the buildings. It actually looked like a white mess of building, as each room needed to be bigger or smaller. I had escaped into a parkour game.

Which I would play without hesitation. I started my sprint, instinctively letting my arms trail behind me. And then, I closed my eyes.

You might be asking: How stupid is it to parkour with your eyes closed?

Well, with those odd appendages behind my head hovering and shivering in place, I had this sort of blue vision that let me see a lot more than normal. Around corners and such. It was interesting. Everything was in a blue outline of sorts, and living things glowed more. Once I knew how to use it, I used it often.

Unfortunately, there was a bat and a parrot joining me as I ran, flying up from behind me. I groaned, mostly because if I wasted time, the slower, stronger ones would start to show up.

"Just bugger off!" I called back, giving the lot of them a glare, and thrust two tiny, basically harmless spheres of blue energy the size of marbles at the two of them, which made little explosions and knocked the flyers back. They made their annoyance known, but I was gone in the eves of the building portions.

I kept sprinting, trying to make my pawsteps quiet while doing so. Left. Right. Jump. Wall jump. Keep sprinting. The end of the compound was near enough, and then… I would be in the open. I would have to fight my way out of this place. I'd go… somewhere. Pick a direction and go.

Because what kind of adventure **doesn't** start that way? I know. It's a legendary cliche. But… Whatever.

Unfortunately, when I **did** get myself off of the building where I've lived pretty much my whole life (don't worry, I get out often to walk about. It's not like the place was absolutely sealed), I was so much in the open that my not-so-much friends the bat and the parrot flapped in front of me and quickly transformed.

Wings stretched out into arms, and claws stretched into legs. Within a half of a second, two humans landed in front of me. They were already dressed in battle gear, meaning they had been prepared for an escape. It was probably my little meeting.

"Hey, Batty." I nicknamed the guy I didn't know instantly, earning a scowl as the boy hefted a customized sword with bat wing shapes as the handguard. The other guy had some knives held backward in his hands. They were single edged, two foot long blades. Generally nasty looking.

"You're coming with us." 'Batty' stated, hefting his blade. "And if you ever call me 'Batty' again, I'll gut you."

" _Nice, isn't he…"_ I thought with a sweatdrop. At least the parrot morphing guy seemed peeved with his partner's little issue.

"Calm yourself," he ordered, stepping forward. He addressed me. "Do not make us bring your back by force."

"Sorry bud," I responded, "But I'm not sticking around. I don't want to be part of a war without purpose. I don't want to be part of a war at all. Attack me, and I'll fight back, knock you out, and move on."

"So be it," he readied his blades. The man's red clothing was going to be an eyesore, especially if either of us got blood on it. Nobody likes bright red mixed with blood red. It just doesn't fit.

"I always preferred the color blue," I said conversationally, standing listlessly. The two facing me grew restless when rather than the blue spheres that I would throw around on occasion, my form became enveloped in a cobalt blue flame. Aside from the initial fire, that flame traveled in inch diameter strings of flames that did not burn.

When my two opponents charged, they found a web of my aura fire wrapping around them and lifting them into the air. They struggled, and slashed at my flames, but they were soon immobilized. If they changed now, their blades would fall. They could not put them in their sheaths.

At least, I thought so. They did become a parrot and a bat again, their swords vanishing. I had the decency to look impressed. "New toys?" I asked, and they started to fly towards me. They only got themselves smacked to the floor with enough force to knock them unconscious, and then I let my aura fire die out.

I was out of there. Nobody was going to catch me. I made sure not to step on the two of them on my way out. Turns out the outlying towns were unaware that I was a problem yet, so…

"Hello, child." an old woman called from her stand. I skidded to a halt and waved. I walked over quickly. My time was short, but she wouldn't sell me out.

"Hey." I greeted her. I leaned against the counter. "I'm a bit short on time... " I whispered, "I need to go."

She understood instantly. "Good for you, child. I wish you luck. You might want this." she said, and As I watched, she pulled a tent out of the stuff she carried and handed it to me slowly. "I do not require pay. I'm old. I would prefer it if a younger person like you had a better place to sleep on your way out."

I smiled now. "Thank you." I closed my eyes. My friends in this town were not going to see me again. She gave me the smile I had known pretty well for most of my life when I went to get things for her. That's why I stopped in the first place.

But now I was behind the building, and becoming human for a moment just to put the tent in my bag, put the bag back on, and change again. Before you ask, the weight does stay with me. It just seems to transfer throughout me. My fur seemed to weigh an extra eighty pounds at this point, but I could handle it. This form has lifted hundreds of pounds before.

If I wasn't so damn useful, they wouldn't be after me.

I ran through some back alleys on my own for ages. Those turned into streets, and streets turned into less used roads, and then… The plains.

I had three miles until I had forest. and then… Nothing. Nobody really bothered to go very far out. The forest seemed to be a maze. If I got lost, I would at least be lost far away from this lot, and I hear apple trees are in this year.

Some of the more superstitious thought that the land beyond repelled those who advocated war, which was a lot of people. This country was practically built fighting the other, and Taika was actually built in the process of fighting us. I was born in the middle of this thing. It's apparently hundreds of years old.

It's been a long and messy struggle.

I heard yelling, and poured on the speed. Risking a look back, I saw something I wasn't really a fan of. They had a flock of birds after me. I could outrun them if I really tried, but… They might follow me. I had no actual idea if the forest kept people who enjoyed war out.

On the other hand, the border was really, really close to me, which I was beyond happy about. They stuck their military base right in the back of our portion of land. So convenient.

Pros and cons to everything. I reminded myself of this as I ignited a net with my aura flame and tossed it in the air to be a distraction. As they veered away, I poured some real speed into my movements, aware that I was still technically carrying eighty pounds, and almost got to the tree line.

Then again, 'almost' is about as good as a sort-of-pacifist nature like mine in a war.

I had twenty people standing there in front of me, weapons drawn. I could not focus on so many. I could get seriously injured like that.

So I bolted. I was aiming for the forest to my left. Unfortunately, I really meant it when I said transformations were second nature The flock of different birds, Batty, and some other things that fly got in front of me again.

Parrot boy and Batty charged at me. I gave an animalistic growl. "I just want to leave!" I shouted, ducking the bat-sword and socking that guy right in the jaw. I'm pretty sure I broke something of his. I then parried one of the parrot guy's blades with the metal spike on my paw. "Just let me go in peace and you will never hear from me again!"

I blasted him with more aura fire, holding him in place with the flames. I could snap his limbs apart like this. I just didn't want to.

But then I had to sequester more. And more, and then I couldn't focus. I was tackled to the ground. " _Fuck! I'm so close!"_ I shouted in my mind.

"You know what you remind me of?" one of the meaner looking blokes asked, his face looking like a feral beast had taken their claws to him. I felt no need to spit on him, I considered those wounds early retribution for what he was doing right now. He put his boot on my chest and held me down. "You remind me of a filthy Taikan with just about everything. Biped, fur, snout, tail, you look a lot like one, and I wouldn't feel any remorse for ending your life."

Okay, I don't actually know any taikans, but being called filthy was deserving of a little spit. He rubbed his eyes to clear them and stamped down harder, but by this point most of the others were converging on me.

Big mistake.

I roared and unleashed as much aura fire as I knew how to, launching them away from my in a spray of still conscious bodies. I was gone after that. Let them pick themselves up and be angry about letting me go.

Nothing stopped me. I sped through the trees for about ten minutes before resting and leaning against a tree. Weighed down as I was, I couldn't go on for too much longer without issue. I needed some rest.

I forced myself to walk on further instead. It would not be too difficult to just sit down and sleep. The weather's been nice for a while. It shouldn't go against me now.

When the sun set, I finally stopped walking and climbed a tree. The branched bent a bit more than they would, but an extra eighty pounds didn't matter to the branch I was looking at. Thick, strong, and not covered in sap. Perfect.

The next day, I used the large tree to get my bearings. There was the town, in the distance, except it looks like I had turned myself around a bit. I was skirting the territory. to the west. That was just fine with me. If I could get somewhere west of the point where a lot of battles happen, then even if they did manage to get in here without being deterred, they wouldn't have the slightest clue of where to go to get at me.

So I started forging west. Let me tell you how freaking **mundane** those weeks were. Trees, trees, and more trees. It started getting colder, but my sole source of entertainment was the fact that the types of trees were changing over time. Hey, the bark's lighter colored now! Hey, is that a touch of red?

But then it started getting **cold**. I couldn't just turn back, could I? No. I was not playing war games. I was going to walk on until things got…

Really, really fucking cold. Ice. Snow. It came almost out of nowhere. There were clearings with a foot of the stuff sitting about. This was supposed to be early autumn, right? I had to keep walking. I had to keep **moving**.

I started using the tent because it was a really freaking good tool. I was carrying it with me now, not in my bag. I could not afford to not be covered in fur in this sort of weather, and it was easier to handle the cold like this.

Then something happened. I was walking along some snowy plains almost robotically near some cliffs when a **real** snowstorm struck. Ice shards and all of the snow on the planet started pelting me, it felt like. My words "This came the hell out of nowhere!" were lost in the wind and ice.

A chill started to set in as I had pushed myself a bit hard today. Perhaps I was a bit brain dead or something to have just kept walking, but I needed to. I needed to keep going. I felt like if I didn't, I wouldn't accomplish anything.

But I guess I just didn't have the common sense to turn back. Problem was, that the heavy coat I had put on was not working so well. My hood up, my snow pants on. I had even stuck gloves on at this point. How did I do this? By setting them down, transforming, and putting them on.

Loopholes bring warmth. Unfortunately, they aren't at the moment. I was freezing now during this impromptu snowstorm. Ten minutes of this and I was down, cursing softly to myself, I started trying to dig a hole in the snow and maybe preserve warmth, but conditions actually grew worse somehow.

I collapsed. I was on my back now, fighting sleep. " _Shit,"_ I thought " _It would have been smarter just to go south, wouldn't it have been?"_

something appeared in my vision. A shadow. Moving, standing there. I stared up at it, wondering what the heck all of those twisting objects were that I was staring at, moving behind whatever it was… I felt I should recognize what I was looking at, but I was a bit groggy at the time.

Then, I was picked up. I felt myself going out like a light and hoped that whatever was doing this wasn't going to try and kill me.

* * *

And then it was warm. I was covered in something. I was on my back still, and my tail was pinned. It wasn't too bad of course. I groaned and blinked. The roof looked nice. it was brown. Seeing that instead of white, I had brown, it was a bit less panic inducing to realize that I was under the covers of a bed.

Even so, I still freaked out a bit and jolted up when I realized that I could. I was still heavy, but my clothing was not there. My animal form was just fine, and in fact, I felt like I was in perfect health. The room was… Nice. The bed was really large. It looked like the roof and walls were carved out of the rock, and were misshapen, but it was warm.

There was a bed, chests to contain things, and other stuff. I blinked. I checked myself, My spikes were intact, though my rather sudden rising had torn up some of the sheets on top of me, so they weren't.

I pulled myself out of the bed slowly, as quietly as I could, my eyes on the door. I wasn't letting down my guard. I don't know what grabbed me, but sticking me in a warm bed and other things were disarming yet suspicious. Made me wonder what they wanted from me.

I dropped to my paws silently, realizing that the bed was really big. And it looked used. Was I using up somebody's bed? It was big enough for two to fit pretty easily. My eyebrow rose for a moment before sneaking up on the door and slipping it open by twisting the knob.

As I stepped forward, I generated a swirling cobalt flame around my paw and more volatile energy around my other paw. Military training took over as I started with threat analysis.

It was warm in here. I saw a cave entrance. Snow blew past it in a speedy manner. It looked nasty out there, but the opening was downwards, and it was actually really warm in here. Around the room were some desks, a counter of natural stone with cooking materials strewn about it and a stove of sorts with wood in it.

I was in the first of three extra rooms. I slowly, silently opened the door to the second one and found a storage room. Filled with food storage, however the heck it was brought around.

The next one I opened even slower. I smelled something different, like the traces of the scent of other people I was managing to pick up. As quietly as possible, I opened the door.

And let me tell you, I instantly regretted it.

" _My eyes!"_ I shouted in my mind as the image seared itself into my mind and I backed away from the doors. I would not forget **that** anytime soon.

I walked to a chair near a desk and just kind of sat down while rubbing my eyes. My winter clothing was hanging up near my door. Hoping that she didn't notice that I had walked in on a girl who was **dressing herself** , I walked into my room, transformed, removed all of my packs, and changed again.

With a weight literally lifted, I started unpacking my things. Everything, I laid out and tried to make sure they were dry. Just about everything was dry. Except for the water bottles, but those are water bottles. What the heck were you expecting?

But I was interrupted. Having been absolutely dazed from before, I got my first real look at her when I stood and turned around. Let me tell you, I was suddenly quite glad I was in the form that my friend dubbed as a 'lucario' form.

She was a taikan, for one. And a very pretty one at that. Probably around my age, the fox-like being had two major colors on her fur that was surprisingly orderly. Her left fox ear was yellow, her right ear was blue. Her hair was blue, and then her face was in a fox-like muzzle. It too had two different colors, though it was the right side of her face that was yellow, and the left side was blue. And her eyes… Were a lighter color of blue.

Six tails, three were mostly blue, three were mostly yellow, and each had a foot of tail space at the tip that was the other color compared to the rest of them. From her neck down, the colors seemed to be swirling to her left, between blue and yellow.

And then her clothing. They were mostly dark chocolate brown with her collar, sleeves, and the tips of her pant legs, as well as any other opening in the clothing, had a milk chocolate brown coloring. I then noticed that her clothing choices were a bit revealing. Not entirely in an open sense, actually; that brown T-shirt was tight on her, her curvaceous form displayed, but it wasn't open and showing her fur. It was looser near the base. It was tight enough however that it was relatively obvious how large they were. Her 'pants' too were very tight on her form, and the same generic colors. They did not even cover what pants were supposed to cover, as the clothing started about a foot below that a foot above her knee and downwards. She wore no shoes. They were more like thick stockings or something. A inch wide brown band circled her neck with a sort of writing on it that I couldn't read. It wasn't like a collar, not really.

I understood that the base of her shirt had to be looser to accommodate the large amount of thick-furred fluffy tails coming from her back. I'm glad I only had one. But why make the part around her chest and shoulders tighter? Especially with her being as… Voluptuous as she was? The overall effect was that it looked very indecent though she did have fur covering the unnecessary open area. I mean, really now. Why? Just why? If I stuck around, I would be sure to mention it and at least mention the indecency of the attire.

It occurred to me pretty quickly that she looked beautiful. It was probably the tightness of the clothing and the colors and her face. I always liked blue. Yellow was a nice color as well. I myself had lighter chest fur, and in fact, we had similar color schemes.

We were staring at each other silently. I hadn't a clue what I would say and I was afraid I would stammer or something. However, I eventually got over my initial shock (mostly shock at the unwitting and shock-inducing image I had seen that was seared into my brain) and showed my paw to her. "Hello," I said lamely.

"You've woken up. Took you long enough," she replied, taking my paw and shaking it. "What are you doing out in a snowstorm in the middle of uncharted territory?"

"Being stupid and stubborn and paranoid."

That brought a tilt to her head. "That was more forthcoming as anyone I have ever met has been," she decided. Her voice was like music to my ears; they weren't orders and they were more conversational. Kind of like how the odd father figure/friend spoke to me.

"I just woke up," I explained. Now I got a chuckle. Her chuckle was nice; she laughed without opening her mouth in a sort of humming chuckle: 'Hmm-hmm-hmm'. "So… This is your place then? In the middle of nowhere plains in the country of nowhere?"

She rolled her big blue eyes. "Yes. I turned this cave into a proper home with plenty of light. I have lived here for seven years. I would like to know who I saved if I may."

"Gabriel" I introduced myself. I wouldn't go and change right here. I didn't know if she would be hostile to a prokopian such as me. That guy who was going to kill me was right; I **did** look a lot like a taikan. With the bipedal form and the features of an animal as well, my beast form could be mistaken for a slightly… odd… Taikan form.

"Christy," she introduced herself in turn. Her tails were constantly moving about. They were actually pretty distracting. That, and I had never seen a taikan with more than one tail ever.

That being said, I had only seen videos and pictures of them. "It is very nice to meet you." I finally decided to say "So… You live with anyone else, or is that room just for strays?"

She laughed. "Just for strays," she responded, "But I picked up a bit more than that, It seems. Hiding all of that stuff… What, under your fur?"

I froze, looking at my mostly unpacked things. This girl seemed smart. I did not know whether she would figure out about who I was.

In fact, she seemed to put some pieces together. "That's a beast form, is it?" she asked. "A lot like a taikan, though your body shape is more animalistic. Skinnier arms, larger quantity of chest fur, and paws rather than hands. There are some taikans that are unique, but we can't just transfer matter into our fur. I had been wondering why carrying you back here was more difficult than it should have been."

I tried to chuckle to deflect some of the overall bad-ness of the situation. "Difficult by about eighty pounds minus whatever food I used from in there. Mostly I just used what I could find in the forest."

She nodded. Then, she frowned. "Are you here to kill me, Gabriel? Because that's only going to work out for one of us," she said. I backed up, arms up in surrender.

"No! No. I'm here because I'm not going to be a part of this pointless war between people who know nothing about each other." I protested, taking in the fact that her tails were spread around her in a threatening array.

I did **not** want to fight her. One, she was entirely innocent, to my knowledge. Two… I'm not gonna think about number two for a while.

Thankfully, she seemed to calm down. "Then you are welcome to stay. I came here to avoid my own war."

Her tails moved back to their normal position where they constantly moved about behind her. I breathed out a sigh of relief, not even trying to hide it. I guessed she deserved to at least see my other face, so I shifted forms and stood up on my feet.

"I've never actually met a taikan before," I explained.

"And I have not met a prokopian in person."

I frowned. "Why bother with the names of countries? We kind of disowned the lot of them, I think." I asked.

She looked thoughtful as she walked towards the exit for the room. "I believe you call your mutual form your human form, correct? Well, human-"

"Please call me Gabe."

"Well, Gabe, I am a uniquely colored fox-like creature known as a kitsune. If you want to be on a first name basis, sure. Call me Christy."

I frowned now. "Christy, are you always going to be so formal?"

That took her aback apparently. Then, she gave a slight smile. "God, if you won't don't think I will," she proclaimed, and I grinned.

"Perfect. Now, I'm starved. I saw some food while I was snooping around."

"Oh, I knew what you were doing," Christy said without hesitation, walking around the corner while I stood rooted to the spot.

"Th-that was an accident!"

* * *

 **That was chapter one.**

 **I have to say that this story is going to be somewhat more mature than others though I will still avoid lemons and things that bad. I built this story after seeing a certain image of a character and built my character off of it. On Deviantart, there is an image of Christy the kitsune, made by McTranceFox and with the title of "Come to me on snow". I normally would use characters with less obvious poor clothing choices, but in this case I liked the look of the character and built an entire story around her and the other main character, Gabriel.**

 **I felt the need to cite my source there, but on the topic of the story itself, I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. Please tell me what you thought of it in reviews, and unless it becomes a problem, I will be juggling it along with my other two ongoing stories. Please also inform me of the first impressions you get from this story.**

 **That all said, have a nice day, everyone. Thank you all for reading.**


	2. Chapter Two

**So, then. Randomness will begin to happen. Haha, not entirely. I don't always do random things. In fact, it's not often that I do that. That being said...**

 **Anyways, let's start off with reviews. Aurorabeam Corporation first- Sorry, that's Lucario. My apologies. Well, Lucario, yes, descriptions are lacking. Part of the character is that he can sometimes be unobservant, as was implied. When he focuses on one thing, something he hasn't seen before, he is likely to describe it. This story is written in the first person, though it's fourth wall is a bit... Weaker than in TAC.**

 **To answer your question, Magic Ball, he was saying that he had been a relatively late bloomer until about seventeen, when he sprouted quite a bit. That is correct, there are basically two things that link this to pokemon in any way in this story, so... Anyways, thank you for your words of encouragement regarding the stories I am running at the moment.**

 **Thank you for reviewing, 1MR Gray. Yes, this world is original and interesting (all sorts of things, one of which you'll see at the end of the chapter that I'm actually going to explain). Christy promised Gabriel that she wouldn't be all formal with him if he avoided doing the same.**

 **I am full of surprises, yes. That's part of the point, West. As I said, TWO things that have to do with pokemon. I'll let you find the other one. Hah... I've been influenced too much by Jango.**

 **One chapter coming up, ArataTheLegend.**

 **Glad you enjoy this so far, Raven. Please don't crash into any mountains... That can be hazardous to your health.**

 **That is one of my favorite things to do, Phillip Harbindinger.**

 **The reference is certainly a good way to help readers visualize the character. I think that it worked out well. Thank you, OceanSoldier, for reviewing.**

 **And Nopemanor. Cobalt blue or sapphire blue... Very similar colors there. You and Silvie have fun.**

 **All right, I don't think there's much else to say, so enjoy reading, everyone!**

* * *

 **The Kitsune and the Jackal Chapter Two: Outfoxed**

I was assured this was lunch. I assured her that there was no physical way she could tell what time it was with the clouds and the snowstorm obscuring the sky. I didn't see any sort of clock around.

"Just eat your food." Christy rolled her eyes at me. Within minutes, she had stopped speaking formally to me. Pretty much as soon as I stopped doing the same. I obediently ate the delicious 'lunch' that she had made. She was impressive in the way she prepared it. Each of her tails were used as easily as one of her arms.

And the food! A delicious recipe it was! She has obviously been doing this for a long time. I was about halfway done with it by the time she sat down with her own food in her chair.

True to her word, the six tailed fox girl was no longer being so formal with me. I had stopped doing the same. It had kind of been a gut reaction or something considering the odd meeting. The **really** odd meeting.

"You're staring at me." Christy told me without looking. I blinked and went back to my food.

"How long have you been living on your own?" I asked "Because the food is fantastic and you've clearly had practice."

She chuckled again. "Hmm-hmm-hmm… I've been cooking ever since I was little. The people in charge wanted me to learn as fast as possible what I could do with my tails as much as possible, so they had me doing pretty much anything that would or could require more than two hands."

I huffed. "At least **something** came out of their control." I grumbled "My so called superiors didn't know what the hell they were doing with my abilities, so I learned off of my doppelganger."

"Twin?"

"Doppelganger."

Christy sat back. "So who is this doppelganger then?" she asked. I rubbed my head, my fingers gripping at my hair somewhat.

"That's really complicated." I told her. "So… They wanted to make you a part of their war?" I asked. Christy looked surprised.

"How'd you know that?" she asked, blinking her big blue eyes.

"They did the same to me, because I'm a unique." I explained, lifting my cup of water to my lips. "Because I have a power they don't understand at all, and only the other Gabriel seemed to."

"He seems like he was very helpful, then." she replied, taking a bite of her own food. "Did he teach you your bad table manners too?"

I grinned. "Absolutely." I said with food in my mouth. She laughed at me, which was nice to hear. We were getting along nicely. "He taught me how to use my skills, yes. Comforted me when I lost my friend, and trashed me in chess at every opportunity."

I sighed. "He was a great friend. He's looked like my seventeen year old self since I was two, and he's got this awesome blue trench coat that's too big for him, and he's got this bow too, with a glowing string. Nobody else could see him, you know. They told me he was imaginary, and thought that I had psychokinesis along with my aura fire."

She didn't seem to understand what I meant by 'aura fire', but she did catch the imaginary friend thing. "Never heard of an imaginary friend beating somebody at chess." she teased suddenly, giving a small smile.

"Oi" I retorted "He was totally real. He could move things, like the pieces, and he taught me everything I actually know. He was weird, and spoke cryptically, but he was a friend. The only things that were odd was that he did make these glowing wings appear when he blasted apart my ceiling when he left, and his shadow was white."

Okay, maybe I should have mentioned that last bit last time. Slipped my mind. I've just seen it so much, y'know?

Now she was interested. "So you enjoy chess?" she asked, totally ignoring the whole 'blasting the roof apart' thing **and** the 'white shadow' thing, and jumping straight to chess.

"Uh… Yeah. Why?" I asked, and one of Christy's tails moved over towards a door that I hadn't seen through a small tunnel, her tail elongating as it went. My eyes tracked the tail, uncertain of what I was seeing.

She opened the door with her tail from here. Her house was bigger than I had first thought. "Eat your food and I'll show you." she promised, going back to eating her food.

"Uh, hello? growing tail? What? How?" I asked. I knew that each taiken had some sort of magical innate ability in their tail, a lot like how every one of my species had the ability to become one specific animal. But I'd never heard of one where their tails could grow longer at will.

Oh, and I'd already seen her set the stove alight with one of her tails. That too.

She raised her brow. "I have six tails." she pointed out "So I have six abilities. Some of them extend to the rest of my tails, such as the one that lets me make them longer."

I blinked, and then realized that I probably should have figured that out. My blank look had the kitsune chuckling again.

"Don't laugh at me!"

"I'm laughing at you." Christy said and picked up my now empty plate with one of her tails and brought it and the rest of the dishes to her counter. "Sometimes you just miss what's right in front of you, huh? Your friend with the white shadow teach you that too?"

"Yup." I admitted. The other Gabriel was often thinking about other things. I wonder what his thought process would be in consideration of Christy here. Probably something along the lines of 'stop looking at her before you look even dumber.'

I got up and did what she told me to about the room. I walked in, and I was suddenly very much in love with this room. Square, with an elevated ceiling, the room had a tree on a stand in the corner that seemed to be watered by a metal contraption that was stationed around the far wall, because that wall had small holes in it that dripped water very slowly into the half pipe that moved down towards the tree. Christmas was a thing, of course, but it was about two months away. Even so, I saw boxes next to the tree that could have contained lights and ornaments for the tree. All of that I cast an mere analytical glance at.

The room had a green carpet on it. It was nice looking, much nicer than the solid stone floor of the rest of her cave. There were actually two couches there on the carpet, and I wondered how someone with her rather slim arms had managed to get them in there on her own. The couches also looked to be extremely comfortable and also both suited for about three people each.

"I had gotten a bit too hopeful when I got couches that big" Christy told me as she entered "But you are here, after all."

There were magic lamps there as well; metal poles with intricate wooden stands that I will leave up to your imaginations on it's design, and glowing clear crystals floating above the top that glowed bright and were about the size of my head. My human head, that is.

That I ignored too. My sights were set not on the comfortable looking footrests, or the fact that Christy, a taiken, a species that focused more on magic than technology, legitimately had a television, though it did seem to substitute magical power for electricity, and a cabinet with movies and books messily interspersed within, or the fact that that Christy hadn't changed out of those excruciatingly distracting clothes. I managed to ignore even that.

No, I was focused on the table behind the couch, that stood as high on my waist, and, get this, was a chess board as well. A chess table. With big wooden pieces on it. My eyes wouldn't leave it.

"Wow…" I said, touching one of the pieces, feeling the great detail in the works. "Who built this?" I asked.

"I had years to myself." Christy explained "And I got to play chess once or twice with my mother…" she trailed off sadly. I grimaced and looked at my fingers. They had dust on them.

"You don't get to play when you're alone." I understood.

She nodded as I dusted some more of the dust off of this piece of artwork. I had a lot of experience with chess. Christy didn't. I would be so, so happy to teach her.

"Would you like to play a game?" I asked, moving to the side of the board with black pieces. Her eyes lit up so quickly I wondered if somebody had strung up the christmas tree that seemed to be on standby and turned it on.

We did play a game. It was quick, it was easy. Christy had a lot of fun, however. I promised myself that I was going to help her learn how to play this game. It also cleared the way for some questions after I said "Checkmate".

She smiled at me so sincerely I nearly forgot my questions. "So… How'd you get all of this in this room in the first place?" I asked.

She looked over the place. "Since I came here, there were always a few presents that just… Appeared under the christmas tree. Some of them are odd, like that golden thing on top of the dresser, and some are useful, like the crystals I used for my makeshift lamp. One christmas, the parts for the television were stowed in a bit present, and I messed with the pieces until it worked. It only plays movies, of course. I snuck into town and got some. Bought, of course, not stolen. I had a bunch of money left over from my family."

I was in awe. She just got materials at christmas by some unknown person who sneaks in and puts presents there… I wondered what kind of person that must have been, and who would be so utterly committed to it. And then, she had the skill to put things together so quickly. She was really good at building things, evidently.

"The couches, though, they were just kinda there after the first christmas, along with the carpet. I keep telling myself it wasn't physically possible, but this room just got nicer and nicer compared to the rest of my home." Christy finished absently.

"So I've got an imaginary friend that looks just like me, and you have a secret santa." I muttered.

"I thought he wasn't imaginary?" Christy rose an eyebrow, looking amused.

"Christy!" I complained.

"Kidding." she said, walking over to the cabinet. "This is the only thing I got that I never found a use for. it's just a golden ellipse with engravings on it and a big switch in the middle."

I looked it over. She was right. That was all that was to it. "I've flipped it over and over again and it's done nothing. The packaging was gold colored, and the ribbon was a real gold ribbon, which I sold to help me get more movies in case I got bored again." Christy told me, handing me the device.

The switch was in the center of the object's surface from my point of view. The thinner side of it had '4WD' engraved into the gold, and on either side of the switch was a 'C' and a 'G'. The switch was pointed towards the 'G' at the moment. "I don't get it… They're just letters and a number to me." I said, handing it back.

"Exactly." Christy nodded. She put it back. "The card didn't have a name, as usual, but it said that I would need it someday."

"If it doesn't do anything…" I muttered.

Christy led me back into the main room and then into the extra bedroom. "How long are you going to stay?" she asked me, her eyes pleading. I hadn't thought about it.

"I never thought about it" I admitted "but… I don't have anywhere to go and walking around for the rest of my life would be pointless, and… You seem really lonely here despite being able to live alone… Could I stay here?"

Christy smiled. I smiled back. "Come on then, I had better get your room situated." she said with a hint of actual excitement, pulling me over to the bed and we looked over the things still strewn over it, namely my jacket and stuff.

Christy then moved about, putting my coat and warm clothing into a closet that I had also managed to miss, and I barely got my head in gear in time to go help her unpack my backpack. She must have been **really** lonely if she was so excited to have me, a member of a different species, in her house for an indefinite period of time.

She had some extra cabinets she built out of sheer boredom in her storage room that she got out for me. Three of them, similar sizes, but different types of wood. She was excellent at crafts. I was astonished.

"Those are awesome." I complimented her. Thing about blue and yellow; they don't hide red very well. The girl turned away from me and went to make the bed.

"You did a number on it when you got up, all right." she muttered, feeling at the damaged fabric from my chest spike. I rubbed my head and muttered an apology.

"it's all right." she said, and one of her tails glowed green. She tapped the fabric with the tip, and then ran the tip of that tail over the tear, which sealed itself up. I don't know, but that doesn't seem normal to me.

"One of your tails has the magical ability to fix things?" I asked.

"Yes, Captain obvious." she replied with a teasing smile again.

I blinked. "I'm a captain now?" I asked, feigning selective hearing. She chuckled at me.

"I'll get you a badge sometime. Will you be staying until christmas?" she asked.

"I would stay as long as I'm welcome." I responded honestly. She started, and she stood up and looked at me.

"Really?" she asked "You'll do that?"

Her adorable blue eyes sparkled with hope, and I wasn't going to say no in the first place. "Yes." I said, giving a commitment that I intended on keeping. Why wouldn't I? Christy was nice, she was really needing somebody with her, and I had nowhere to go.

The fox girl had the sparkly eyes that wouldn't be ignored. I smiled and looked across the room again. "So you kept the tree alive with a natural drip system? It looks like it wasn't easy to put together to work perfectly." I commented.

"There was some trial and error." she admitted "It kept me entertained for a few months before it never leaked again, at least, not where I didn't want it to. See how the ground slopes down to the corner and the water goes through that crack? I don't know where it ends up, but it's an excellent drain."

"How in the actual hell did you manage to find such a perfect cave for a house?" I asked, nonplussed.

She just shrugged and looked back at the chess board. "Could you… Tell me what I did wrong in that game?" she requested, and I smiled and walked over to the board.

* * *

And now I was questioning whether it was dinnertime, just to joke around. "We're **still** surrounded by all the snow on the planet." I pointed out cheerily.

"Shut up and eat." she chuckled, putting a plate before me and then one in front of herself again. I had asked if she wanted help, but once I had admitted that I didn't know jack shit about cooking, she chased me away with a frying pan while I laughed and ran.

I entered my animal form and demonstrated my aura fire for her (what the hey, we were sharing our pasts left and right), by bringing over our cups of water. Christy hesitated to touch the stone cup of water, but I picked up mine without a problem. "It doesn't burn" I assured her.

She cautiously picked up the glass (don't ask me how she got the glass) cup and took a drink, smiling when she put it down. "Your flames seem even more useful than my tails." she said.

" _Your tails don't have a weakness that I can gather"_ I thought. "What exactly can you do?" I asked

"One of my six abilities is the elongating ability, and the other five are strength, mind, fire manipulation, water manipulation, and repair." she explained. "I can use all six from each of my tails, but each power originates from one of them each."

I whistled. "Remind me not to mess with you."

"Yes, well, it made me a target in my country. I was the second taikan in known history to have more than one tail." Christy went on, "the first was a king in older times, who became a king because he could defeat all others in single combat, as he had two abilities, and was powerful. If the people in today's government had gained control of me, they would not have to fear me gaining control of them and working to end the war on more peaceful terms."

I set my glass down again. Christy was obviously more powerful than I was. My abilities had a glaring weakness that I should **never** share. Ever. Hers… I didn't see one. Very handy, her abilities. So were mine. Makes living easier in this house.

"So... " Christy ventured after we were mostly done with our dinners. "Is there anything we can talk about that's, you know, cheerful and not about the war at all?"

"Uh…" I muttered, "Well… I could tell you about the time that the kid who never ages, my friend, showed off the fact that others couldn't see or hear or touch him."

Her eyes widened. "Did he prank people? Please say he pranked people."

We talked about his various shenanigans for a while, laughing hard as I specifically went through the stuff that he did to the leader of the country. By the time I told her about what he told me about him apparently screwing with his wardrobe, Christy was laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes.

"Did he really say he put **that** in his wardrobe!?" she asked, wheezing for breath. I nodded without words. I didn't trust my mouth to open and not release laughter. I must not laugh… I must not laugh…

"Pfft…"

It turns out I am bad at not laughing.

We kept talking, discussing various things that were amusing or interesting where we came from. Prokopians tended to focus on technology, and taikans tended to focus on magic. She gave some names of her childhood friends when they were too young to be brought into the war mentality. Sandra, and Armalita.

Sandra in particular had a lot of antics under her belt due to the ability present in her tail. I had asked what it was, and she was hesitant to say, but eventually… "She has what's called the 'drunkard' magic. Anybody that touches her tail instantly becomes mentally affected as if they were drunk." she explained. "That includes herself. At all times. Ever since she was a baby."

I sat there and stared at her. Her friend's been drunk since birth? Maybe that was why she had such… 'interesting' clothing.

Speaking of which, if we were going to live together, I was going to have to teach her what actual clothing was, not that sexualizing outfit, the only saving grace of which was that while tight, the shirt did not actually show off the skin (and fur) of her breasts.

"One thing... " I muttered quietly "This is entirely off topic, but I want to be serious for a moment. Do you always dress like that?"

My question caught the girl off guard. "W-what do you mean?" she asked, suddenly blushing a bit. I didn't want the conversation to go in **that** direction.

"The clothing you're wearing right now. They don't exactly qualify as casual clothing, no matter how much like pant legs those stockings are. Do you have any decent clothing that you can wear, that isn't so… Revealing?"

She still looked confused. In fact, she looked like she hadn't a clue what some of the words I said meant. I sighed. "Indecent. Revealing." I elaborated "You do know that clothing is supposed to **cover** that area, right?"

Now she was definitely blushing, but I was plenty serious. "I'm going to go mad if you're going to wear such clothing. Difficult to focus on anything else. Do you have anything you can wear that will actually cover everything? I mean, you don't have to cover your arms and all of your legs, but still…"

She started to splutter a protest, but I was very insistent. She finally sighed and said "Wait there. I don't exactly know what you mean by 'decent', but I'll try on some clothes and you tell me whether they fit that description." she stood up with her cheeks obviously still heated a bit, and walked off while I was still wondering how in the heck she could have lives to the point where she was nineteen or so and doesn't actually have a concept of decency. And I wondered at the same time why she wore clothing at all if she didn't have a concept of decency. Taikan society must be very strange indeed.

And thus began the most stressful hour of my entire life.

* * *

"What… is **that**?" I asked, looking at the weird swimsuit-slash-dress she was wearing, with poofy shoulders and ribbons trailing down from the bottom. It was tight, and also revealed about seventy percent of her breasts.

"It's another one of my outfits. Does this qualify as-"

"No, no it does not."

* * *

"What about this one?"

"That thing covers more of your back than your front, and it **barely** qualifies as covering anything!" I complained, looking at the freaky clothing item that was stretched across her back with straps holding her breasts tightly in place and underwear-shaped cloth in place over her privates, but as I said, it basically covered nothing else of her upper body. She was wearing stockings, though. At least that was clothing, I suppose.

* * *

"How about this?"

"I-I don't know what to say. I mean, it covers what clothing should cover, by about ten percent-"

"Great! So-"

"Which is not nearly enough, as they are still incredibly revealing."

* * *

"I don't even know what I'm looking at? That thing covers everything **but** what clothing should cover, even worse than your original one!"

"But Gabriel-"

"But Christy, this is ridiculous."

* * *

"Christy, you do understand that I want you to cover the specified areas of your body up, right? So it's less distracting and more acceptable for being in society in general?"

"This covers it up!"

"Your neckline is a natural born citizen of the planet's core!"

* * *

"Absolutely not!"

* * *

"Gabriel? your nose is bleeding"

"I know, Christy. Believe me, I know."

"You don't seem as disgusted-"

" **Christy.** "

* * *

"Has the bleeding stopped?"

"I stemmed it-... What."

"Do you like it?"

"Christy, that is a nice dress, but it barely reaches your breasts and it doesn't come **close** to reaching your shoulders."

"Well, it does cover me pretty much, right?"

"It does."

"But… I don't think red's my color.

"Not really, not with the blue and yellow colors, and if you move around too much, that'll slip down. It doesn't look like a tight fit."

* * *

" **NO!** "

* * *

"Gabriel, red doesn't look good on you."

"Oh shut up!"

"Hmm-hmm-hmm…"

* * *

Christy found me burying my face in one of the pillows on her couch, refusing to look up. "Gabriel?" Christy asked. "What about this one?"

I forced myself to look up at her. She had looked increasingly amused (and embarrassed) as this scene had continued to be dragged on. Now she was wearing a turquoise dress that did reach her shoulders, but the neckline showed a lot of her breasts and the clothing was open around her belly button. And of course, she had that brown collar looking band around her neck. I sighed. It was easier to ignore something when it's not in my vision if I am talking to her face.

"Just… Put on what you had in the first place…" I muttered, defeated.

She laughed at me and walked out. At that point she had worked out what it meant that something was indecent, and I guess she didn't have a single set of clothing that qualified in her house. She knew I wasn't going anywhere though, as I had clarified something during that mess that it was just going to make focusing difficult.

She reappeared in her original clothing and I sat up a little straighter. "So I lost that fight." I muttered "You win."

She chuckled. "Not much of a fight." she commented as she sat next to me on the couch. I allowed myself to relax as I knew that everything would be all right in this place, this new home. "Do you like it here?" Christy asked me.

I looked her in the eyes, smiling. "Yes, I do." I responded. "I really do. It's better than I could have possibly asked for. It's a warm house with more food than you could ever eat, and I'm willing to help you however I can."

The girl smiled and sat back, her eyes scanning the room once more. She must do this often, just look around and rest. Not doing much. "Do you do anything for fun around here?" I asked after like five minutes of just sitting there with Christy.

She blinked again. "Oh! Uh… There's fun stuff to do when the snowstorms go away in the spring, but the winter is really, really harsh… I've built a few things that could withstand the winter out there, one of which you almost found while dying out in the snow. Otherwise, during the winter, I just kind of watch movies and read books."

"Sounds like fun." I agreed with a smile.

* * *

It turns out that some movies that we have have complete equivalents in Taika, with actors taikans, but the plot, the characters and their personalities, hell, even some of the scenes took place in the same spot. "If taikans avoid technology, why do they make the occasional movie?" I asked, looking through some of the disks.

"We don't avoid it, we simply turn to magic for most things. Besides, we probably used some sort of magic lens or something. I don't know. I don't know where they find time to make movies during a war without end either." Christy replied, also looking through another pile of disks.

"I guess children that are too young to train need **something** to entertain them." I muttered. "And not everybody winds up in the war. Just… A lot of people."

"Far too many." Christy agreed sadly, picking a disk and putting our third movie into the television. "It's getting late, so we'll watch this and go to bed, yeah?"

"Yeah." I leaned back on the couch and we watched the thing start to play. Any movie that focused on wars generally were of poor quality because the two species don't work well together on **anything** , and it would likely be just a bunch of promotion bull, so Christy kept movies that generally involved other things. Like a group of children getting lost in the woods and stumbling upon an old relic of some sort of massive box on a track and wheels, just sitting there and overgrown. They wound up living in there, finding age old supplies that (because it's a movie) were fine to eat.

Christy fell asleep during it. I only knew because her head slid down the couch and onto my shoulder. I was stuck now. If I moved, she woke up. I didn't know how she would respond to being woken up. Could involve getting smacked around by her tails.

The movie ended, and I tried to pay attention to it. The box car thing sounded interesting. I knew that there were some trains running around the mines, but I hadn't seen them. I never did go to the mines. I only knew they existed because one of my probably deceased friends had been able to become one of those dog-things that live down there. The metal dog things with the short shovel-like claws. I remembered that there were several species of them.

My friend… Hard to even remember his name. I was about eight, and he had been taken by taikan forces that demanded that their prisoners be released in return for the boy. From what the other Gabriel told me, the leaders apparently sent them a video of us murdering the taikan prisoners in cold blood.

I think that was the day that I never wanted to think about joining the war again. Those kinds of incidents happened all the time. That boy was probably dead. A cobaltum, his animal form was. That much I remembered. Each of the metal dog creatures down in the mines had a name based on the metal they were composed of, taken from some old language that nobody really remembered. His animal form was made of the metal cobalt, and we probably became friends with our both having blue colorings.

That's pretty much all I remembered of the guy. I sighed sadly. I looked at the girl sleeping on my shoulder, deciding that I would let her sleep for the moment, but **I** needed to go to bed. I shifted into my animal form and quickly and calmly lifted her up with aura fire, moving slowly as an attempt not to wake her.

I don't know how she sleeps, which could prove to be an issue. I eventually decided to go to her room and set her on her bed after pulling the covers back, and then I used the same flames to pull the covers back up.

The lights in the rooms were dimming on their own. Perhaps **that** was how Christy kept track of time. I know, I'm not exactly the most observant person. My own bed was a pretty attractive concept though. I padded over to it, shifting to my human form as I walked through the doorway, and promptly fell on it.

I nearly fell asleep doing it. I forced myself up, blinking and closed my door first before going to change clothing. I could have just slept in my animal form again, but I didn't want to trouble Christy with fixing it again. My paw spikes and my chest spike might have caused some damage if I fidged during the night.

Set of pajamas on, I walked over to the bed again and slumped into it, barely remembering to pull the covers up before I was asleep.

* * *

My first days with Christy were very… boring. Eat breakfast, play chess, laze around for a bit, eat lunch, play chess again, and then again, and try to find something to do (like… Rearranging things kind of boredom) followed by dinner, movies, and then bed.

Christy had already seen every one of her movies. She just fell asleep to the sound of them after a while. I think she was staying awake for most of them for me. Occasionally, casual conversation between us turned to the war (mostly because it was just so repetitive to keep talking) and we would talk about certain random things regarding that, and then drop the subject.

It was obvious both of us were avoiding the subject of the war when we could. We would just like to forget, but somewhere out there, members of both our species were slaughtering each other and backing off, neither side really victorious. I cursed the pointlessness of the entire battle every time I thought of it.

Christy was worrying me as well. She would keep looking out into the snow from the cave entrance, holding her arm with her other hand and clearly thinking about something.. Or someone. I did not know who. I myself thought about some friends of mine sometimes. Primarily my lookalike.

Calling the guy 'Gabriel' always felt really weird.

But he'd blasted apart my ceiling (in the most violent way possible) and set me free before basically leaving. His goodbye was short, and… Well, not informative in the slightest. Something about his family, the species my animal form was being something called a 'lucario' and that it was unique because it didn't exist 'in this universe', and that, pretty much, I wasn't going to see him again.

And the guy hadn't ever changed into an animal form. That was possibly the weirdest part. I wondered if he was actually some sort of other species, a unique being that looked human but wasn't… He had those glowing symbol-wings, and had casually blasted apart the ceiling…

And so many other irregularities. Remaining hidden from others. The white shadow that I **swore** was looking at me sometimes. Crushing me flat at chess at every opportunity (that wasn't odd, actually).

More days passed. A week passed. I got really bored, and Christy offered to take me outside in the snowstorm. I had wondered what the heck she was talking about; the storm was worse than before. But then she had me change into my lucario form, put on some of the warm clothes, and then she wrapped me in one of her tails. It was very warm, probably a result of her fire manipulation ability. I wasn't being **set** on fire, thank god.

But I was much warmer leaving the area and going into the snow. My paws sunk into the snow, because boots would be pointless with paws. Yet I was warm still. Like having a big fluffy scarf around me with a built in heater.

She lead me around that day. There was a ravine with all sorts of things she had built. She had put together a zipline, and apparently under the snow there was a tock climbing wall and a bunch of other things that could be very enjoyable without being surrounded by snow.

"An entire ravine filled with things to do." I commented "You've been busy."

"Very busy." she agreed "Since I was seven, actually."

I started. "You've been on your own since you were **seven**?" I asked. No wonder she knew how to do basically everything. I was **so** outclassed in the living off of my own skills department. So, so outclassed.

"Yes… Something… Big happened." she whispered, and to my horror I saw a tear fall from her eyes. I shut up about that day instantly. "If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine." I backpedaled.

She shook her head. "We should probably tell each other someday, but… Not today, all right? The holidays are nearing, and… I want to have fun on christmas. The weather usually calms around that day, and slowly dies out going towards spring. Christmas morning, we can walk out the front door and see the perfect winter wonderland."

I forced a smile that slowly grew more real as it continued to exist at the thought. I hadn't seen a real winter wonderland before. I was kind of a city boy, in a sense. Yet at the same time, sort of not… My life is complicated, but not absolutely tragic.

Nowadays I worried that Christy fit into the 'tragic' category. There were way too many people like that in the known world.

We went back inside. The walk had taken about an hour, and having something new and refreshing to do was good fun. Being wrapped up in Christy's tails had been a bit of an embarrassment after a while, actually. Her tail was all over me, wrapping me up like somebody trying to wrap a Christmas gift with only ribbons and they had about twenty seconds to do so. Quite the messy gift.

Once released, I went and snatched up a book to read. 'Dark Star' the title read. Interesting. "That one was one of the gifts I got." Christy informed me, gesturing to the christmas tree that was still devoid of lights and presents.

"No last name for the author…" I muttered. I opened it up and started reading. Christy chose a book and sat next to me, reading as I was. Every time we did this, she was sitting a tiny bit closer to me…

* * *

We decorated the christmas tree. Why was christmas a thing, you ask? I don't have a clue. It just was. A tradition with no obvious origin in our history. Perhaps it was just always there. I don't know. Some nutter could have invented it twenty years ago and rewrote history books and for all I knew, all the old people I know were playing some sort of joke with everybody my age and younger. I couldn't possibly know.

Christy's lights were white, and the ornaments were mostly white as well. She tied a string to the golden object that we really couldn't figure out and hung it on a branch, turning it into a gleaming ornament. It was heavy, probably because it was freaking gold, but she tied it to the sturdiest branch she could find without hesitation.

We had an amazing time decorating the thing, chattering about what went where, what was important to have that should be placed first, and I got to see some… other items.

Christy forgot I was there and put a picture of a female taikan and Christy together, both roughly seven, that looked like it was painted by an excellent artist. It had a hole punched into the top with a string on it, which my friend hung up silently, right in the center of the tree.

I looked away quickly when Christy seemed to realize I was there again, feigning that I hadn't noticed. Who was that in the photo? Christy had looked strange enough compared to most pictures of taikans with her fifty-fifty color scheme, but that girl was a taikan with longer, white fur, a slightly feline face that was not covered in fur unlike the rest of her, red eyes, freaking wings, a blade-like horn on the side of her head and a blade-like tail. Her claws looked sharp, and her clothing choices made what Christy was always wearing look like the most decent thing of all time. I'm serious. They were like white sleeves that went from her wrists to her elbows and from her ankles to her thighs. That was literally it.

But when I snuck a look again, Christy's face was immensely sad. This other girl, this somehow already voluptuous, heavily furred taikan with that collar of fluff that reached down to her breasts, was someone that Christy had known. Taken in the war, or just left behind if Christy didn't have a choice.

Christy's tail brushed my head as it moved to pick up another ornament, as that was how she was doing it, where I had chosen the manual labor option instead.

"...She's my sister." Christy explained out of the blue. "I read your mind with my tail, using the mind power. That's Raina. She's a very unique taikan, but she can't actually fly with those wings, which were just made of fur and more like a mane or something, and those weaponized extensions are only able to harm. Her tail never had any magical ability imbued within it, which is the first and only case I know of. I had to…"

She choked. "I had to leave her behind the day we tried to escape. She begged me to go on when she got captured, and we were only seven… I don't know what happened to her."

"I don't think they would kill her." I ventured. I couldn't give much more than that, but I set my paw on her shoulder. "If she was trying to escape, she didn't want to be in the war anyways. Maybe she found a job in the town or something."

Christy sobbed a bit and held my paw to her shoulder with her hand. "With so easily weaponized features like that? They would send her to battle the moment she had enough training." she cried. She sunk a little in her posture.

This was what I was missing. Her sister. A unique taikan, a rarity in itself, but without magic to back her up and instead she had blades, and someone that Christy had deeply cared about. The girl was right. Her sister had likely been claimed by the war at this point.

I let her hold my paw there for a while, forming an ornament shape out of Aura fire with my other paw, outside of her view. When she let me go, I placed it on the tree and held it together with my will for a while and waited for Christy to notice, to be distracted.

She would not come out of that trance until she was ready, so this was more of a way to know when it was safe to talk to her again. I heard her whisper things about her, memories, and I listened. Her sister was sweet, lovable and loving, and avoided flailing her arms around too much because her claws were always so sharp. A bright kid, good with the use of magical tools even if she lacked magic herself.

I felt a flare of anger again. That kind of life had been taken and snuffed out because her horns (the larger one plus the smaller one barely hidden in her fur), tail, and claws could be so easily weaponized and used for killing. Both governments are nothing if not opportunistic.

It took twenty minutes, but I heard Christy's confused mutter: "Gabriel, why is there a blue ornament on my tree?"

I looked over, meeting her eyes, and grinned. I made the sphere of condensed aura fire split apart into streams of undamaging flame, making it swirl and dance through the branches of the trees like their own set of illuminating lights around the tree. Christy gasped as I added a lot of blue to the white coloring of the tree.

"Gabriel, that's… Beautiful!" she exclaimed at this shimmering blue lights that added to the white lights that did not shimmer. I kept them up for a bit, before letting them fade. Score one for being dramatic!

"Sorry I can't keep it up all the time." I apologized "I would need to focus-... Christy?"

She was looking at the tree from a new angle. "A few mirrored ornaments here,and there, and there, and sparkling blue strands of lights that shimmer and are used intermittently… Great idea!"

I grinned. She was lost in her planning for her beloved christmas tree. Much cheerier. We went back to decorating it like normal while Christy promised to get some new decorations for next year. Chuckling and laughing like good friends. It has been a couple weeks after all.

"Wait… Your tree topper is a crystal ball?"

"Yeah. Don't do the same in Prokopios?"

"No… We use an intricate five point star."

"Huh."

* * *

"The gold thing really catches my eye among all the white." I commented once the tree was completed "So… What now?"

"Now…" Christy began dramatically "We go back to reading."

"Oh you silly-… Getting me excited over nothing…"

"Hmm-hmm-hmm"

I went back to my excellent book, and the girl went back to hers. This was the peaceful life. I was slowly starting to get used to it. I liked it here. I was just so used to a training regimen… Speaking of, I should probably keep exercising, just to keep my strength up.

So I asked if that storage room of Christy's had any exercise equipment that I could use to keep in shape. For my reasoning, I gave the fact that I should at least be able to easily move things around when we rearrange stuff. She told me she didn't have any, but these days were always days of relaxation for her. She got exercise doing whatever in that ravine she had turned into a jungle gym built out of activities specifically for that, or sometimes not…

But I agreed that a month or so of resting would probably be just fine. We weren't going anywhere, so why not enjoy ourselves?

More days passed. Christmas drew closer, and we grew to understand one another. I'm sure the lot of those people who surreptitiously rewrite history in their favor would be glad to overlook this, the prokopian and the taikan, good friends, living together, at peace.

Censorship is for the weak, but there are two countries worth of people who can easily be weak. But that was not a note that I was going to follow through on. It was nearing Christmas, after all. Even the war seemed to be in the background during christmas.

I was glad that Christy had a lot of wrapping paper saved up from carefully unwrapped presents that would work…

Christy dragged me off to bed christmas eve, instructing me not to keep an eye on the tree, fearing that nothing would come. Considering that the gifts had no known origin, that was probably a valid fear. I promised to avoid even using my extra senses to see what was going on, and she sent me off to bed.

I smiled in the darkness of the room. Even the army treated christmas like a holiday. I remembered the day that I asked around wondering what the history of the holiday was, and nobody had a clue. They just did it, and knew it was a day of peace. No apparent history.

And yet it was so **important** to everyone. Deep down, we all wanted to stop fighting. Why we simply hadn't laid down arms yet was astonishing. It was mostly due to the fact that… the leaders of the country were not those people. Victory at the cost of everything else. That was how they played.

My smile disappeared. I fell asleep with a sort of darkness in my heart, knowing that while we had our fun, everyone else was finally getting a reprieve from fearing for their lives. Christmas meant more to them than it did to me.

My dream changed while I was asleep, becoming much sharper and more detailed. Christy was shaking me using her tails and telling me to get up. I obediently bolted awake and slammed my forehead into something.

"Ow!" Christy yelped and drew back "I didn't know you woke up so violently!"

I rubbed my forehead and she rubbed her muzzle. "Did you use a kitsune mind trick to get me awake or something?" I asked, trying to squash my headache.

"I couldn't wake you up easily. I regret choosing the easy way." she replied, shaking her head violently and refocusing on me. Her ears flicked as I began chuckling at the look on her face. "I lost that fight."

"Not much of a fight."

we laughed and she went ahead and reached out her arm. I grabbed her hand and let her yank me out of bed. The girl obviously was always so excited for this day. And now she could share it with somebody. She led me straight past the door to the living room with everything that christmas morning entailed, except for one thing.

"I never, ever go into that room until I've looked at **this**." Christy told me, leading me to the entrance to the cave. My eyes widened, and I gasped in astonishment. I didn't want to move, didn't want to even attempt breathing.

The snowstorm was just **gone**. As Christy had told me, the weather would just stop at christmas and continue being nice for the rest of winter. What she **hadn't** told me was that I would be looking at the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.

The snow plains stretched out for about a mile, flat and peaceful. With several feet of snow sitting atop it in a blanket of pure, dazzling white. Beyond that, trees. There were hills in the distance, occupied by wonderful pines that were also coated in white, yet provided plenty of green to see from our angle of them. The hills overlapped each other in our vision, gradients of greens and whites reflecting the sun's rays. Beyond that, a gigantic mountain towered above everything, as wide as it was tall, with all sorts of nooks and crannies in it that showed the darker rocks that make it up, while the rest was covered in snow. The sunrise shone directly behind the tip of the mountain, the center of the sun directly at the mountains second highest point (it had two points), casting shadows perfectly across the landscape before it, and glowed a beautiful golden, as did the clouds nearby. The clouds burned golden near the sun, and devolved into tones of yellow, orange, and red across the sky until they once more turned gray and white at the edges of our vision.

I stood frozen in awe. This was what Christy woke up to on christmas? The perfect cavern with warmth and being easy to live in, opening up to the most beautiful sight I have ever seen in my life?

I got an idea. I had something for this. "I will be back in just a moment, Christy." I told her, and bolted before she could say a word. I rushed into the room, rummaging about, hoping that my doppelganger had packed it for me.

I rushed back, hands full, and I raised the object to my face, aligning it just right and capturing the image.

 **Click**.

I lowered the camera as it spit out a picture that would be one of my favorites of all time. Christy was looking at the device with confusion, but I looked at the photograph as it started to show up properly, and I showed it to her.

Her eyes widened, and then they widened some more. She put her hand over her muzzle, speechless. I smiled, and said: "Here."

I handed the item to her and stowed the camera away into the pocket of my pajamas. "Gabriel… How… WIthout a memory lens…"

"It captured it perfectly." I responded, hoping not to get into a discussion about how different our species were. "But it can't compare to the real thing, not even close. You get to stare at this every christmas, every day that the weather is nice, actually. It's the most beautiful place I have seen in my entire life."

She smiled and hugged me. "I'm glad you're willing to keep me company…" she whispered. Then she jolted back and blushed furiously

"As a friend of course." I managed, barely keeping my composure. She nodded, and I was glad that we had settled that possible misconception. She turned back to look outside, and I did as well. For an hour we stared at the sight before us. The prospect of presents didn't matter quite so much anymore.

But eventually, the sun was above the mountain, not partially behind it. That was when Christy turned around and headed back inside. I took a last look and followed.

Christy was right. There was absolutely some sort of freaky secret santa that invaded her home at christmas and set a bunch of gifts down. I hadn't heard a thing, and there weren't any footprints or anything near the entrance that weren't ours… and there were a lot of gifts.

Christy's eyes widened. "Somebody knows you're here." she said, pointing to some of the gifts with my name on the tag. Now **that** was creepy.

"I sensed my surroundings repeatedly. Nobody could possibly know what direction I went or anything. I detected no other life forms, prokopian or taikan." I refuted, but the presents were there, including… A cobalt blue one.

I almost grabbed it immediately. 'From: A Friend' it said. I held myself back however.

Instead, I focused, and snuck a tendril of aura flame outside of Christy's vision to pick up a present I had hid there and surreptitiously added it to the pile while Christy absently walked over to the couch. I was glad she opened her presents carefully enough to have reusable gifts, otherwise I would have had all the trouble concealing it's contents.

I sat down next to her on the couch, just looking at the pile of presents under the tree. Christy slipped one of her tails into my pocket and casually pickpocketed my camera away. She was evidently trying to figure out how to use it.

"I'm sure Taika came up with a way to do much the same thing." I offered, showing her how to do it by demonstrating with the tree and it's mound of gifts. The country may focus on magic, but some of the goals had to be the same.

"Well, sure, we've got movies, but still… Our versions are memory lenses, and while they have a lot of uses, they are insanely expensive to make, and… That thing looks thrown together in comparison, yet it works so well…"

"There's a limited number of photos I can take without getting some more empty photos to put the pictures on, so I think we should probably be sparing with it." I suggested, putting it away. My companion smiled and stretched one of her tails over to wrap around one of the presents.

"Most don't have anybody's name on the 'from' bit." I noticed.

"Except for the one you tried to sneak into the pile." Christy said. I froze. How had she seen that? That was the second time she's pulled this on me! She didn't brush me with any of her tails, so she can't have used the mind trick…

She giggled at me as my face went red. "It is Christmas. I guessed." she revealed, making me feel dumb as hell. She brought back that present she had grabbed and another one, which was for me. Deciding to follow her lead, I began systematically taking the wrapping off and attempting not to rip it.

"So if you had to guess one person you knew in your life who would have secretly followed you out here, not told anybody, and just gave you presents on christmas, who would that be?" I asked as I started unfolding the colored paper wrappings."

She sat back for a bit. "Uh… Well, Sandra, I guess. She's literally drunk all the time, so I don't actually think it's her, but… I don't know. Maybe it's something about the tree itself. It's a very peculiar tree, and I've been taking care of it the entire time I was here. The needles stick up, and it's got a bit of turquoise to it. Maybe it's some sort of magical tree or whatnot. I don't know if it's worth thinking about. It just happens."

I snorted. "Magical tree? Really?"

"Hey, we've got wolves that can change their fur color around our parts, and I think some around yours. There are a lot of things that are magical in nature, or whatnot. I wouldn't put it past the world to be that weird." she retorted.

"True." I admitted, finishing my careful unwrapping of the present to reveal… equipment. Specifically, the kind of equipment I would need to make a makeshift weight bar, and some digging tools to drill holes in the walls and put together bars for things like pull ups… I had a box of things to begin a project for a workout area.

"Seems our… Whatever or whoever they are, thinks a home expansion project would be a good idea." Christy said, pulling out some more serious digging tools. I nodded in agreement.

Christy treated christmas day like a time to sit back and relax, opening things at a slow pace and we enjoyed discussing what we could do with certain things. She would go for a walk in the afternoon, she told me, which we would do later, but for now…

Many of the gifts were useful things. Heck, there even some presents full of food that Christy delighted over because she hadn't seen some of the ingrediants before. The girl really did like trying new things while cooking. Anything to spice up your life, right?

Entirely intended pun aside, I picked up the gift I was saving for last, the one from 'a friend'. A very peculiar friend.

"Your powerful friend managed to sneak you something?" she asked. I nodded with a smile and slipped the card from out of the white ribbon that wrapped around the blue wrapping paper, which encompassed a large somewhat hefty box.

I opened it up, ripping up the envelope in the process (I don't know if it's physically possible to open one of these envelope things without ripping it at least somewhere) and pulled out the blue card within.

"I am glad you found yourself a new path, my young friend." I read aloud as I looked at the outside part of the card "Within is one of the gifts you have wanted for a long, long time, along with something you might not expect. Do not read the remainder of this card until the gift is opened. I would not want to spoil your surprise."

I set it aside and began the painstaking process of **not** ripping up the packaging. Blue was a nice color, and it would do to add it to Christy's available stash of wrapping paper for the future. I hoped she wasn't going to wind up a hoarder, but at the moment, it seemed that she was actually a few sizes and colors away from a proper selection of pieces of wrapping paper for any circumstance.

I unveiled the box within, which was actually a legitimate small chest, with an obviously blue felt interior, and some sort of cloth within.

I set the box down on the ground and lifted up the clothing. My eyes widened. I was looking at a cobalt blue trench coat, just like the one my friend had always worn, and something I had always known I would look **fantastic** in.

I quickly threw it on, neglecting to button it up (C'mon, it's for style, not practicality) and swirled around to face Christy. The sleeves were wide enough to accommodate the clothing I was already wearing nicely. It was about a foot too long, dragging along the ground, but I wanted it that way. If I had a white shadow, I would look just like a nineteen-year-old version of my old friend.

I opened up the card. "The coat is built of cobalt and chlorophyte, the latter being a legendary metal… The cobalt will weaken the chlorophyte, of course, but it will still function as a weak armor, and it amplifies the special properties of chlorophyte as well. Not so drastic an amplification of putting imperial gold and chlorophyte together, but I did want it to be somewhat protective. And blue. Can't forget the blue." I read, chuckling at his words. I continued to read.

"The coat will be unaffected by your change from human to animal, and as such it will be able to protect you." I continued to read, instantly changing as I registered the words. Sure enough, most of my clothing sunk into my fur and equalized the weight, but the coat stayed. "Okay, that is insanely cool" I commented as I shifted back.

"The bow held within- What?" I asked, looking down at the box. Christy was facepalming, chuckling to herself at my obliviousness, as I was when I wasn't using my aura senses. In the box was certainly a bow, but it wasn't anything like the other me's.

For one thing, it was way fancier. My friend's bow was simplistic, very bland in design, and a pure blue color with a glowing string. Mine was a recurve bow, for one thing. The recurve portion being extremely fancy, having feather patterns. Even more awesome was that the bow appeared to be made of some sort of glass with stripes of blue metal along it's surface, and the glass had a blue tint to it. The handle fit perfectly into my hand and I knew it was built just for me.

"The… The bow held within is modeled after a glass bow, a powerful weapon if the glass is formed properly enough, though it can be brittle if handled incorrectly. This won't be. The glass is infused with cobalt lace, and you can see the rest of the cobalt for yourself. It will react beautifully to the aura fire you use, turning it into either physical arrows built of blue flame, or bolts that will launch opponents, which I feel you will use more often. Arrows would of course be far quicker than you can manage to launch foes with normal aura fire. Do not fret; the bow will generate the aura fire from your energy even if you are not in your lucario form. I made it, and I thought you would probably like it and it's special properties. Mostly non-lethal of course." I continued to read, holding the bow now with one hand.

I could see through several parts of it, but it wouldn't break. And my coat would… fix itself? Well, Christy's repairing abilities were not as useful, but she could mend a bunch of other things. Besides, it was all right if something was made less useful around here. Life was going to be easy from now on.

No surprises, nothing. Christy opened another gift slowly behind me. It was nearing midday, if the crystal lamps growing brighter was any sort of tell about the time. We were in a cave, after all. We hadn't eaten breakfast at all.

But that was all right.

"Ooh…" Christy murmured as she held up an interesting outfit from the box. With a color just like her eyes, the jumpsuit looked like it would be a very tight fit, and to my delight, it looked like she could zip up the front to actually cover her breasts as well, though knowing her, she might leave that zipper open, exposing at least fifty percent of her breasts. "I am absolutely adding this to the clothes I wear most days." she continued. The girl did use her water manipulation ability to wash her clothing every day, which was nice. And she was going to wear this one about as often as what she was wearing now?

It was going to be a great day.

* * *

 **Yes, a lot of time passed, and not all of it was detailed. Yes, Christmas is a thing in this world. No, nobody knows why it's a thing in this world, but it's a tradition.**

 **Due to Gabriel being somewhat unobservant at times and the fact that this is a fires person story and he knows his old friend very well, he never mentioned the white shadow last time. But when describing his friend to Christy, he would remember everything about the guy.**

 **Random unexplained item is random and golden. Props to anybody who can guess what the acronyms mean and what it does. As for something I should actually explain right here because it would just needlessly confuse people without a decent explanation, in this world, the sun rises in the west. Gabriel turns west and then walks around the known territory of the two countries until he finds Christy. This reversal of the real world is purely to confuse you, and should be taken as a malignant course of action inspired by my sadistic side that Jango has instilled in me.**

 **That all being said, with time passing at a rapid rate, I might get questions about the fact that the story is labeled a romance story, as is on the description. Real romance doesn't blossom in a day, people... Also, all the line breaks ever. I know. They were required for... THAT scene. Tell me if you thought Gabriel trying to get Christy to wear something decent amused you.**

 **All is said and done for the chapter. Thank you for reading, and have a pleasant day.**


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter start!**

 **...**

 **Hah, just kidding. I need to do reviews and a bunch of other stuff... But I think we can get right into reviews this time while Jango is getting the crap beaten out of him because he apparently somehow took pictures of something that apparently didn't go over well the first time. Anyways, review time!**

 **More detail coming right up, West. And some questions being answered as well. I choose cobalt because cobalt is a cool metal, and cobalt blue is this story's Gabriel's favorite color. And because the main characters have a bunch of blue on their person. I DO know the cold bus thing. I feel you on that one.**

 **Switch answers will come eventually. It wasn't meant to stay a mystery forever. Thank you, Magic ball, for your compliments regarding my characters. As for the war related stuff... I'll be explaining that eventually. Over time. You know how I am.**

 **seven out of ten... Oh well. It's a passing grade. Yes, there was a lot of character development in there, because that stuff's necessary. Thanks, Aurora, for reviewing.**

 **No, Phillip. You didn't win. Perhaps sometime after this, you will be able to figure out what it stands for. I didn't even know I was making the christmas thing funny, so... Go me, I guess.**

 **Anyways, that's it for reviews at this time. Chapter start!**

* * *

 **The Kitsune and the Jackal Chapter Three: Revelations**

I sat on the couch as Christy changed, fiddling with the small golden object in my hands. Christy had let me take it off the tree to see if I could figure out anything about it. I watched the girl come back in, in her new brightly colored jumpsuit. I noted that there were indeed yellow outlines along the seams, and about an inch away from the zipper. A zipper that was indeed open, but I could let it slide.

"That suits you really well," I said, getting up.

"Find anything about that thing?" she asked, "Also, thank you."

I tapped at the thing. "it's solid gold. Whatever its purpose is, it's intended that you can't find out. Melt down the gold, and you destroy the interior. I reckon breaking through the shell will also make it not work properly. It's aggravating, really. We should probably just keep it on us until it reacts with something or whatnot. Perhaps the single switch does something special when near something else. I don't know. But… It doesn't do a thing right now. If the note with it said to keep it around, we probably should."

She agreed with me, by the look on her face. "Yeah, probably," she took it, turning it around in her hands, and pressed the switch.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I tossed the thing back to Gabriel, who caught it and started stringing it back up. I wondered if he was going to put it back on the tree, but he made a loop with the remaining string and tied securely to his belt underneath his trench coat.

Between my… Whatever style of clothing this was called, and his trench coat, we looked like fashion statements. Not that that mattered so much, but Gabe was fine with it, and he seemed to like something about the thing I was wearing now. I did like it too, though smoothing my fur down underneath the clothing when I had gotten into it was a chore…

And he could change without losing his new coat. And his bow disappeared when he became his beast form. At the moment, we were preparing to leave and go somewhere. With new clothing, a golden thing that didn't do anything to our knowledge, and one bag each of supplies for something we can build out in the snow that we got for christmas, and some food.

The two of us ate lunch and headed out. He changed into his lucario form and put on warm clothing, before putting his trench coat back on. I doubted the guy would ever take it off. Except maybe if he wanted it washed. I would gladly do that for him.

The snow was much more tolerable for him. I walked along with the guy as we neared ravines, and he broke the silence. "I wonder how far it's possible to go." the boy ventured, swirling in place as he spoke just to make his trench coat flow in the air as he moved. "Making world changing discoveries, and- Gah!"

He slipped and fell right over as he was walking backward over some frozen ground. The dip. "And for Gabriel's latest world-changing discovery…" I began dramatically, before leaning over him. "Ice makes things slippery."

"Laugh it up, fox girl." he muttered, and I obediently laughed at him before grabbing him with one of my tails and pulling him up and depositing him on the icy ground, where he managed to keep his footing.

"Like you're one to talk, you being a blue jackal of all things," I replied cheerfully as I walked past him.

"Hey, only half of the time!" the guy responded before following me. The ravine was a beautiful sight when there was grass everywhere. "Besides, you're half blue too."

This was true. And it was true that my odd coloring was, well, odd. Blue wasn't uncommon of course, most colors were available as taikan fur colors, but my face being half and half was something that the people around me when I was young just couldn't figure out. Seriously… Yellow on one side, blue on the other, with a perfectly vertical line separating them?

I don't think I realized just how lonely I had been until I had somebody that was fun to tease. Gabriel acted so goofy at times. He **had** some sort of aura sense that he just didn't use for whatever reason. Maybe because it lifted my mood, and his, when something funny happened as a result of him being oblivious.

Gabriel rubbed his head a bit as he looked around through the trees we were walking through. "That ravine was what, a mile away?"

"Mile and a half," I answered. He nodded, and we traveled in silence for that while. When we did come across the place, it looked, well, snowy.

Gabriel stared down at the ravine. It was wide, perhaps a mile wide, actually. It sloped down gradually, with rocky surfaces that would be coated in green moss dotting the landscape on the way down. The rocky way down aside, there were some paths down to the bottom that were perfectly safe, and at the bottom was a small valley that would practically glow a verdant green in the spring and summer, though brown crunchy leaves would dominate the entire ravine in the fall. from the trees above it.

I cleaned it up just before winter every year so that it would be pretty again. Those leaves ruined the image of the place when it was clean. As it was now, it was coated in white, and only the boulder-filled portions of the terrain and the cliff faces were defined, so it was a pit of white and gray, but at the same time, it was still nice.

And Gabriel clearly agreed.

"They'll be half-buried by snow, but we can still work on them," I said, hefting my bag of supplies and putting it over my shoulder. I walked a ways along the edge and unwrapped a well put together zipline harness from the tree, a tree that hung directly over the steepest edge of the ravine.

"Get this on and jump off the cliff here," I ordered "It'll take you right down there, and I'll manually pull it all the way back up and use it too. It may take me a while, but don't worry. I'm sure you'll be fine."

"I can wait around for a while." Gabriel agreed, patting the large bag over his shoulder. "I guess Having the time to do such a thing brings a lot of productivity for you, and not being lazy is something I can understand."

Gabriel was on his way down. Not for the first time, my fingers met the band that was constantly around my neck. I really needed to stop touching it.

Of my abilities, repair, fire, water, mind, strength and elongation, I kept using the mind ability on Gabriel. He has the best intentions a lot of times. Though he does get aggravated when I wear indecent clothing. I had made the conscious decision not to tell him about the t-shirt and sweatpants in my wardrobe. I hated those things. They were incredibly itchy. The rest of my clothing was pretty revealing, aside from this amazingly comfortable jumpsuit-thing that matched my colors.

Speaking of that, it was warm and it fit my entire body snugly, perfectly. Every christmas, I got exactly what I wanted or needed. Gabriel had expressed the idea that someone might be sneaking in and leaving them, but I reminded him that to use the mind power, a taikan has to make physical contact with someone, and it fails on another taikan with the mind power.

Aside from the jumpsuit, the other clothing items were things that I bought myself. That golden ribbon that was around the present with the weird item that Gabe now had on his belt sold for quite a bit, so I have spending money. I rarely wear a lot of that stuff anyways, because I can clean the clothing every night using my water manipulation and fire manipulation together to create hot water.

So I didn't need to wear anything other than what I was wearing when Gabriel first showed up, and I made a habit of taking the time to clean it daily. I suppose having this to wear every other day would help as well. I could wash one, let it dry without using fire and potentially having to repair it, and then maybe wear it the next day.

Why was I even considering it as a question? Because Gabriel preferred that others were at least wearing decent clothing when he was talking to them? He seemed to be getting around the whole 'distraction' argument he made a while back.

I hummed in amusement. He would **not** like Sandra. Not one bit. At least that was one friend that was safe from the war.

I shouldn't have thought about the war. I gripped my left arm at the elbow tightly. Sandra was probably drunk and enjoying herself in the nearest pub to the main compound while her sister was in the main compound as well because she could control her sister, but she would fight if asked. And then my thoughts turned to my sister once more.

Would it really have been so wrong as to stay to save her? I would have been captured, forced into the war in some manner, and I likely would have been slain after inflicting numerous casualties with my six powers. And then my sister would either be dead at that point or sisterless.

But that logic would not stem the flow of guilt. My fingers kept finding the band around my neck with it's runes, or just idly moving as I tried to do something other than think about my sister. Death is the concept that just… Sits on you. Like gravity increases and my cave has collapsed on top of me.

I don't think I would ever stop mourning her. Gabriel's presence took some of the loneliness away, but it did not replace that pit in the landscape of my soul that was where I kept all I had known and loved about my sister.

Gabriel had no siblings. The only friend he had lost was someone so far back into his childhood when he was about my age, that Gabriel couldn't remember the name of that friend because it was so far back.

He did not truly comprehend my pain. Who possibly could? Any person who experiences tragedy experiences it differently. Even someone else who lost a sister that they loved for their entire life, they would experience their grief differently. If I were to meet someone who had lost their dear sister, I would admit that I do not know their pain and point out that they do not know mine.

But one thing is for absolutely certain. If you lose an integral part of your family and life, you don't truly recover.

" _Christy, just go! Just leave me and go! They can't get you if I keep them here and struggle!"_ The sweet voice of my sister echoed in my head like that of a ghost. I shuddered. I had obeyed her that day. I had abandoned her because she asked me to, and I don't care if I'm still alive right now. I could never forgive myself for not turning back and helping her fend off a battalion of people.

My sister made the decision to save me that day, and I don't know what her fate was. I would go buy clothing in the nearest town, sneaking in and talking with someone, hiding my tails away and even my face because being caught would mean that my sister had achieved nothing.

If I were to ask what her fate was, people might ask **why** I was asking about it. I wasn't an interrogator. I didn't know how to properly ask someone how something was happening discreetly. I didn't have proper military training, or training in pretty much anything except for the basic use of my powers, as I had been experimenting with those powers all my life.

Gabriel would be at the bottom of the ravine now, so after I was certain that the line wasn't moving and the reel that contained the line that connected to the harness had stopped spinning right where it was supposed to, I started to reel it back with one of my tails absently. I came up with something to distract me, as I felt I should by the time that I saw Gabriel again. The guy cared a bunch for whether I was okay or not. He did what he could to try making things better.

So the rest of my five tails were busy manipulating the snow around me. I would be approaching really fast, and so I hoped that Gabriel was nearby the line at the moment. `I managed a weak smile that progressively more real as I envisioned the look on his face.

The harness came back and was ready to be used. I smiled and put it on before preparing myself and everything else I had put together to go down there, and began my trip down.

Using a zip line is always fun. The wind whistling through my fur, the rush… My tails would be streaming behind me but I was using them at the moment. Using my water manipulation magic.

It took about two minutes to get down there, and Gabriel was waiting for me. I smiled, he smiled, his eyes widened, first in confusion, then in surprise, then horror. As I shot by him and started slowing down, I unleashed a storm of snowballs upon him so large that it made the snowstorm he first came here in seem weak.

The jackal was promptly buried deeper than the endless dream, and I got myself out of that harness and let it hang there. I was laughing hard enough to be unable to properly breathe. I managed to make the snow on top of him shift away until he burst out, catching his breath amid the large mound of snow.

Hs ears twitched as he heard me laughing behind him. Oh god, had I needed a good laugh. He adopted his cross look with his arms across his chest underneath his spike, making me laugh harder. He stared at me for about two solid minutes before that scowl broke and he too was laughing, trudging over to me and out of the deeper snow I had stuck in there.

He was manipulating some of the snow into large spheres by surrounding them with Aura fire, but he wasn't paying them any attention, to my knowledge, as if it was a subconscious reaction. At least, I thought that for a while.

He put his paw on my shoulder, laughing. "That's now how you do it," he said casually, one of his aura fire-wreathed snowballs to his paw, and he promptly mashed the large sphere of snow straight into my muzzle and eyes, rubbing his paw in circles and pressing the snow onto my face like a mold. I couldn't see at all.

And then because I was still laughing and way unbalanced, he casually tipped me over backwards and I landed in the snow on my back, punching a christy-shaped hole in the frozen water and just staying there, laughing and rubbing my eyes clear.

I opened them to see Gabriel holding a massive ball of snow above his head with aura fire. He smirked as my eyes widened and returned the burial favor.

I had to stop laughing because I was getting snow in my mouth, so I unburied myself to see Gabriel smiling with his arms crossed.

I felt lighter as I brought myself out of the snow. Using my water manipulation, I made the snow that had gotten into my suit spill out of it through the collar. "You're soaking wet," I commented.

"So are you," he replied. He shivered slightly while I didn't. I assume my fire abilities keep me warm in cold weather. I wrapped him up in one of my tails, warming him up quite a bit intentionally, and started going through our soaked but very usable materials to find what we should build first. Gabriel had started to protest being wrapped up again, looking very embarrassed, but I just kept my tail around him. He did look funny wrapped up in a mostly yellow tail.

Looking incredibly silly, he eventually rolled his red eyes and started unpacking things to make a training area of sorts. Some exercise equipment alongside everything that I had built for activities myself. Exercise was probably something he enjoyed. At least, something he was used to doing.

He put together a structure with all of the metal stuff he had brought along in pieces, and I helped him fuse the pieces with fire by cooking the metal in a small area on each around their bases. He had this little box-like area that he could climb into and do numerous exercises in different ways with weights and other things. The end result was pretty neat. He finally climbed out of the thing once the last bar was in place, smiling at our construction, and then we started building one of my projects.

Building things in the snow would have been a challenge if I hadn't just shunted the snow away for us to place the construction foundation upon. Building an obstacle course was an interesting prospect, as we had limited resources and couldn't match what Gabriel had described as an impressive place in Prokopios.

Instead, we had hurdles and a purposely messy looking jungle gym thing halfway constructed before we ran out of materials and it was getting late. Gabriel and I mapped out where the rest of that thing would go, then we took a look at the sun and were on our way home.

We chatted up a storm on the way out of the snow-covered pass, walking around the ravine to where the zipline started, and I began winding it up with one of my tails while I continued talking to Gabe. By the time the harness was secured up at the top again, we knew almost everything about each other that wasn't painful and/or already disclosed.

Gabriel rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "We just ran out of things to talk about, didn't we?" he asked, and I realized he was wondering how we were going to pass the time **now**."

"We'll just fill the silence with inside jokes," I replied with a shrug. I had let him out of my tail at this point, him being dry and warm in the cold weather. Throwing snow around would seem kind of pointless. The two of us walked up to the house, the sun disappearing over the mountaintop that my cave was in. I say mountain; it was a bit small, but it was a ten-minute climb on a big rock, so I guess it was acceptable to call it a tiny mountain.

We walked into our front door and I got the rest of the snow off of us, including getting some snow out of the pockets on Gabriel's trench coat. "Ever since I came here, I've been in my lucario form more often than my human form," Gabriel commented, shifting forms again, the rest of his clothes appearing on him as he did so. He ran his hand through his short dark hair and turned green eyes on me.

I realized I was just kinda standing there like an idiot staring at him. I quickly looked away and went into the living room to relax and perhaps try out a new chess trick I had thought up.

* * *

It's been about two weeks since that day. Winter seemed to be diminishing a bit early, but we had built so much in that ravine, and I was becoming decent at chess, something I loved so much. I felt like my mother would be happy with me from her place in the endless dream.

"Well, we ran out of materials really quick," Gabe muttered, "We were working together, and had a lot more fun, so that's probably normal, but don't these projects normally take a long time to properly accomplish?"

"Maybe twice as long," I said, "We should probably find something new to do before things get boring, eh?"

"A little bit of exploration?"

I smiled. "I was thinking a trip to a small town at the edge of Taika." I proposed, seeing his comical jaw-drop, and I continued: "For the most part, the war practically skims over it. Inopportune place, little recourses, poor, and nice people. I keep my identity secret when I go, managing to hide most of my tails, so even if somebody there did support the war, they wouldn't really have the evidence to talk about me or the motivation to follow me. It's good."

Gabe seemed to ponder it, but something clicked pretty easily for him. "Hello, my name is Gabriel and I am a **prokopian** ," he reminded me in turn. The mock introduction got me to chuckle at him.

"Your beast form looks a lot like a unique taikan. They won't question it too much because you **are** a unique anyways. Just only use your tail for your aura fire, and don't unleash it anywhere else." I said. He looked uncertain, but I insisted, pulling him away from his book.

Finally, I cut to the point and whispered quietly, abandoning my cheerful expression: "Sometimes, I just need to go back there in some way or another. It helps me remember everything, why I stay away, why it's so important that I ran. To convince myself that I did the right thing."

Gabriel looked pacified pretty quickly. He eventually nodded and shifted forms as he did so. "Sure thing, Christy." he said, going to pack some food for the trip.

He did plenty of form shifting while packing, placing some clothing on that fit his beast form and just eventually abandoning the notion of a shirt-... Hang on… "Oi, hypocrite." I called "You get mad at me when **I** show off my chest."

"Chest spike." he explained, "And men don't have private parts on their chest that need covering." I noticed with a sinking feeling that he was suddenly acting rather cautious around me. He didn't crack a joke here. Perhaps he considered the situation serious.

Perhaps I simply should have gone on my own. Explained where I was going and said that it was an occasional part of my routine. I opened my mouth when Gabriel's finger met my open lips in a 'shh' motion. "Christy, I'm just afraid you'll get caught and used. They don't care about me. They'd kill me. They would **use** you, and it would be so, so much worse. I know for a **fact** that you will go whether I go or not, and so I am coming with you. I understand your need, and it is time for me to stop being what I am now and start being a bodyguard, because otherwise what's the point?"

I was stunned.

"I don't want you to come to any harm, Christy." he said, moving his hand over to my shoulder. "I don't want to see you captured and forced into a battle that you hate. If I can, I will protect you. So stop worrying about me and pack what you need."

Gabriel swooped over and snatched up his bow, plucking the string and listening to the sound it made before putting it on. He had practiced with targets that he had placed in the ravine, and he was a good shot. He shifted back, his bow vanishing. He put on the pants and belt, as well as hooking that golden switch thing to that belt and hiding that underneath his trench coat. "And come on, does this trench coat not count as a shirt?"

"It exposes one hundred percent of your chest." I said finally, recovering. My face was heated for some reason as I thought of what he was doing and why he was doing it. He was my companion; ever since he popped up out of the blue… Or white… He's just kind of helped me as much as possible. The random thought " _I'm glad his skull's tough enough to withstand frying pans when he tries to help with the cooking though"_ ran through my head.

Despite his awful cooking skills, the guy was kind and generous, willing to help, and… He cared. A lot. When something was troubling me, he would set his hand on my shoulder and tell me that I can pull through it. It helped, whether he understood the pain I felt or not.

And I didn't really know how he felt about me. I was glad that my fur hid the heat on my cheeks. I stopped switching between looking at his face and exposed chest and excused myself to go pack. I kind of pushed past him, as my room was in that direction, and he sidestepped to let me by, his belt clipping the edge of the table.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I fumbled, disentangling my belt from the corner. The gold object fell off of it, and I quickly picked it up and put it back on my belt. I needed to stop running into things, really. Christy closed the door to her room quickly, looking rather flustered. I was kind of confused. The girl was nice, but I didn't get her mood swings.

I shrugged and finished up getting ready and set to waiting for her to do the same. I knew that her normal clothing choices like her jumpsuit and that other outfit would not hide her tails, so she was likely getting that dress that was open around her belly button and covered a lot of her. She could hide the rest of her tails in that dress.

It would be a bit difficult to move around properly in, but I suspected that she did it more often.

She walked out to meet me a while later, having apparently taken her time and had gotten control of her expression. She smiled at me and walked out swiftly. It was interesting; I hadn't expected to be so good at predicting her clothing choices. What do I make of that?

I finished up what I was doing and followed in her wake, double checking my stuff and practicing using my aura fire only from my tail and nothing else. It would pretty much cripple me in a fight because it would take longer, and I would have to figure it out, but fighting would be a final option if everything went badly.

I looked at my paws, frowning. They could still hold things alright, but not as well as human hands. They would be the biggest obstacle for me as taikans had hands, not unlike a human's, just covered in fur. The paws could be written off as an aspect of my unique taikan form, I suppose.

I decided to forget about it and enjoy the journey. Trees passed us by, and we were walking through fresh snow. The snow was lower, some of it having melted over the last two weeks. After walking around the big rock that contained Christy's cave, you are looking upon an expanse of forest and hills that trailed into the distance.

We walked those hills. Those endless trees until the place turned into the plains and then more forest. Except that there was less snow covering those. A biome shift. It was an interesting sight. Not common.

We walked for hours, for miles, ate some food, walked some more (exciting, right?) and finally stopped for the night. It would take us a few days to get there. We knew this.

So Christy slept in the snow while I slept in a sleeping bag. Christy's amazing ability to not give a damn about the cold was so impressive to me. She was literally treating the snow like a massive pillow. I myself slept in a sleeping bag.

Christy woke up while the moon was high. She was fidgeting in the snow, seeming uncomfortable, before she woke up with a slight gasp. She sat up quietly, checking to make certain I was asleep (I guess I was a decent faker) and rested her head in her hands, crying silently. I was, of course, viewing this with my aura senses, but I stiffened very slightly. Nightmares.

The girl was having nightmares. Perhaps about her sister. Perhaps about something else. I wasn't going to let her just sit there and cry. I slipped out of my sleeping bag quietly. Obviously not quietly enough, because her ears were very good, and they twitched, but she didn't move.

I padded over to her, aware that the snow was crunching under my feet. I knelt down next to her. "...Gabriel…" she started.

"Shh-shh-shh…" I shushed her "It's all right. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I guess coming back to Taika brings back bad memories."

she nodded. I sat with her silently for a long time, waiting for her to stop crying at the memories that must have circulated through her dreams. Her hands slid down her face, and reached the band around her neck for a moment, and then slumped beside her.

I rubbed her back for a while. I spoke quietly to her. Eventually… "Christy, if it helps, you can sleep nearer to me this time." I offered slowly, not certain how she would take the friendly gesture.

She hesitated, before nodding and allowing me to lead her over to where my sleeping bag was. I got into it as Christy lay down right beside me. She proclaimed that she felt nice and warm though the ice wasn't melting around her. Eventually, I asked her to tell me the truth as we stared at the stars and moon together.

"I… Guess I'm a little chilled…" she admitted, "My fire abilities only do so much…"

"You can't just sleep out in the snow then!" I protested, looking through the pack beside me for an extra sleeping bag. Then I went and looked through Christy's. Neither had one.

"I'll be fine, Gabriel." she protested "It's just a little chilly-"

"No." I replied, "No, you are not. If I can't find anything to keep you warm… You need a way to stay warm."

She kept protesting that she was fine, and I found **nothing** in this pack that could keep her warm, and my eyes turned to me sleeping bag. "No." Christy grabbed my shoulder "You are **not** sleeping in the snow and letting me have the sleeping bag!"

How had she known that?

I hesitated, uncomfortable. I didn't want her to be cold and experiencing nightmares during the night. I mean, who would want a friend of theirs to be dealing with that? That's what I mean, certainly.

"There's only one sleeping bag, and You're going to sleep in it." I said "If you won't let me go without, you're just going to have to join me. It's easily big enough for the both of us."

The **instant** I closed my mouth my face was suddenly a lot warmer despite the snow. In the moonlight, Christy's blue and yellow fur was so immensely red that her face practically glowed. I hadn't realized how that would sound when I said it.

We were silent for about five minutes, trying not to be the first person to look away while I thought about what to do. Eventually, I said, "Just get in the sleeping bag."

Christy hesitated for a time, and as I slipped back into the bag and made room for her, she very reluctantly complied and got in as well. It was… Cramped. Very cramped, but it would be warm. Sleep came very easy for Christy, likely due to the improved temperature and all of that. I was just glad that the sleeping bag was waterproof.

The warmth in the enclosed space increased immensely. I fell asleep, but I felt that we would be feeling terrible in the morning.

We did. The temperature was high when I awoke early in the morning and I quickly got out of there. Christy's body heat was a big high for that to last a night. I worried that I might have a fever. I seemed to have woken Christy, who was blinking awake even as I smeared my face with snow to wake myself up.

"Mornin'," I said. She looked up at me with a really weird expression, seeming a bit flustered. "Come on, get up. We should be able to get down there in two days time, so if we hurry, we're only sleeping together in that bag for one more night until we reach the place and maybe get a room there."

My analysis served to calm her down due to the false evenness I set in my voice. I was pretty freaked about having to do that again. I didn't seem to have a fever at the moment, so that was fine. Maybe magic body heat for some reason causes less harm. Nah, that doesn't make any logical sense at all. I guess I'm just lucky.

On the other hand, that night had been cramped and overly warm, not ideal circumstances for sleeping, but I would never, **ever** let Christy-... Anyone sleep out in the cold even if it didn't bother them that much.

Once she was up (and her cheeks had gone back to blue and yellow respectively), We got breakfast together (travel food, obviously) and then set out. Hours of walking. Sometimes quiet, sometimes chatting quietly. She talked a lot about the town we were going to visit. There were all sorts of things that you would expect in a small, low population town. Small shops, farms, the main village area, a courtyard, and a pub that was generally the social center of the entire place as stories and rumors are shared.

She liked talking about this old Taikan man who owned a shop not far from the point that she entered the town. His description of old and kind and generally accepting of his position in life yet mildly mysterious reminded me a lot of the old woman that owned the shop that I went to. She had certainly seemed kind of mysterious and had also told me that she was old and that she had accepted her lot in life.

I wondered why there were so many similarities between our sides. Taikans and Prokopians had a different lifestyle, but at the same time, taikans had movies and pubs and all sorts of other things that practically matched ours, even if they went about it differently.

I reflected once more on the fact that all of this fighting was happening because it **had** been happening since ancient times. Maybe there was more to it… "Christy… Do you think there's any other reason that they're fighting other than that they have been fighting since anyone alive can remember?" I asked finally, having waited until the conversation about the old white wolf taikan that owned that shop died down.

She frowned. "I would say… Well, if one side stopped fighting and pushing, advocating for peace out of the blue, and the other side **didn't** …"

I understood. "The side that stopped fighting would get torn apart."

"Basically, the war is because we can't properly communicate." Christy nodded at her conclusion.

"Or rather, because they **won't** communicate." I corrected her, seeing her nod in confirmation. "Because I know that my side sent the other a video of them killing prisoners in spite after the taikans offered a prisoner trade."

Christy shuddered. "That was the day you lost your friend." she understood the look on my face.

"I feel ashamed that I cannot remember his name." I admitted eventually, five minutes later. Christy gripped my arm with one of her tails, turning me around to look at her.

"It's been a long, long time." she reminded me "And you were really young when it happened. This is **not** your fault."

I looked down and closed my eyes before continuing on. I didn't want to meet her eyes, because despite her words, I still felt somewhat responsible. It was absolutely stupid; I couldn't have conceivably done anything about it, I was younger and weaker, and I hadn't known it would happen, and I didn't **know** him very well.

Maybe that last bit was why I felt bad. Because I was somebody he knew and I was supposed to be his friend and I don't remember his name. I'm not sure we even traded names. With Christy's tail brushing the back of my head (I was used to this by now), I knew that she knew what my problem was, and she seemed intent on fixing it.

But her words didn't mean much to me, and Christy knew it. "...Hypocritical of me, isn't it?" she asked, "To bother you about something that you blame yourself for and not let you do the same thing on the topic of my sister."

I wanted to lighten the mood. "Eh, I would call it a healthy dose of revenge." I replied, elbowing her with a grin. She knocked my head down with one of her tails in return, and then the bad mood had lessened. Somewhat.

Through the snow, we trudged from day to dusk. It always left a hollow feeling when we couldn't find anything to talk about, and so we would sometimes just jabber on about things we already know. Hell, we descended into pun territory for a while. That was an interesting lunch conversation.

When somebody got halfway through the 'why did the chicken cross the road (Hey, I don't remember which), the other slapped their hand over their companion's mouth and changed the topic. The two of us shut up for a while before we started comparing the merits between certain equivalents, like cameras versus memory lenses and so on.

"Hey, what did you call those dog things in your mines?" Christy asked me. I blinked, thinking about it.

"Well, they don't have a single official name. They're named based on the metal they're made from. Aurum, Argentum, Cobaltum, etcetera. They seem to be born straight out of the ground, their alloy based on which type of metal vein is closest. They are basically metal dogs, though their claws are kind of like pickaxes and shovels mixed together… Their skin is metal, and they don't have fur at all, but the metal moves flawlessly around it's apparent muscles. It's literally entirely metal, but it moves like something that's very much alive. We're pretty sure they're magic in nature. You don't have them in your mines?"

She shook her head. "We don't have mines. At least, not very many of them. Not very many of our constructions need metal to work properly. I know we have a few, but I have zero experience with them…"

I laughed. "Neither do I. That person that we were talking about, well, I do remember that his animal form was one of those dog things."

"Ahh." she nodded "Hey, do their tails have any fur at all?"

"Yes, actually, pretty sure." I remembered "Makes the tails sort of dangerous, which is why you don't get in the way of a larger one that's protecting the younger ones. They can **hurt**. Ah… So I'm told."

"Good, because I would have gotten a weird mental image if they had tails more like rats or something." she said with a chuckle "There aren't anything wrong with rats, but bare tails don't go well on too many animals."

"I got it." I said.

The two of us got so bored that we started walking on opposite sides of each other, just to see what it would be like for me to be walking on the left and her on the right. After like a month and a half of doing it the other way, we kept turning away from each other to speak by accident. Then we laughed about it when we made those mistakes.

"Well…" Christy broke the next ten minutes of silence "...Never mind."

"This is just getting worse…" I said, "We need to stop running out of things to talk about over and over again."

"It's a tad ridiculous right?" Christy asked me. I nearly choked.

"Seriously? Who says 'tad' anymore?" I asked "I mean… What?"

She punched me in the shoulder, laughing. "Shut up, dog boy." she said, holding the tip of her tail to my mouth not unlike a normal person would put their finger against someone's mouth to shut them up, but this time with a bit more fur and a lot of opportunities to have my nose tickled a bit.

I turned my head away and had a quick sneezing fit. Christy smiled at me as she walked off while I had to catch up. "I swear if I had the power to make you sneeze at will." I growled playfully, and then I summoned some aura fire. "Come here and let me try!"

"No way!" she shouted, bolting, her exposed tail from the dress trailing out behind her. She was pretty damn fast in that dress somehow, but I was up by her really quick. Christy fended me off with her hands as I tickled her nose with the aura fire just a bit, making her sneeze.

She looked up at me, shaking her snout violently to clear the effect of sneezing that hard. Her eyes met mine. "You're going to regret that." she said playfully, and it was my turn to bolt in the direction that we were supposed to be going. She wasn't coming close to keeping up with me, but her tail certainly was.

I was caught by the ankle by the appendage that elongated and stretched towards me at really fast speeds. I was instantly hoisted into the air by my ankle and Christy came up to me, hands on her hips. "Really now, did you think you would get away with that?" she asked.

I tilted my head for a moment. "Uh… Yeah." I responded cheekily. She frowned and wrapped me up in her tail, before walking along with me utterly sequestered. My lucario form could handle seven hundred twenty pounds, but Christy was using that strength thing with her tail. As each of her powers ran through all six of her tails and were amplified, Seven hundred odd pounds of force ain't gonna cut it.

She managed to juggle the tasks of tickling my nose constantly and making me sneeze, and walking along. Meanwhile, I was, well, sneezing for a while as Christy got her revenge. I had enough and sent some aura fire across the air and picked her up with it. I suddenly felt a huge strain as Christy kept me in the air, and even if she was holding me, my aura fire was holding both of us in the air, upside down, staring at one another as I tried not to drop us.

I huffed as another sneeze started to come, and I lost focus as I let it loose, dropping both of us right on our heads into the snow and ice. Damn, that was cold! I yanked my head out and backed up, bumping into a tree in my disorientation. Christy came to a halt as well, keeping her tails in the folds of her dress except for the one that returned to normal length behind her.

"I'd… Call that a tie." Christy said.

"Only the last hit was a tie…" I muttered, sneezing one last time "You got me good with that."

She chuckled and walked over to me. I backed up a step, but she was right in front of me, looking into my eyes. I wondered what she was going to do.

She opened her mouth to say something, clamped it down again, and then opened her mouth again. "...You've got snow in your fur…" she said lamely, blushing somewhat, sweeping some white cold dust from the fur on my head.

"That… Was the worst attempt at… whatever you were doing… Ever."

"Gabriel?"

"Of all time."

"Sh-shut up!" she protested and proceeded to pack a snowball in her hands. "You lost some of that nice white color in your fur. Let me put it back."

I ran again.

It turns out that because we were running, we made excellent time. Christy told me that she wanted to be down at the village in the morning, so with the lights of the small town in the background, I managed to coax Christy into the sleeping bag again, though that night was even **more** awkward because this time, we were making that attempt right from the start, and trying desperately not to be making physical contact within the sleeping bag was… difficult.

The two of us did manage to sleep. I had a dream that I was back in my old room in Prokopios, speaking with the other me. His shadow was shifting this time around, unlike how I've ever seen it. "How's it been?" he asked.

I looked around. "Uh… I was going to town with Christy." I said eventually, unsure of how to respond properly. It was a dream, after all. I knew that much. The other Gabriel laughed and walked up to me, clapping me on the shoulder as he stopped.

"Knew you'd get a girlfriend once I was out of the house." he said as he walked by me. I felt like he had just punched me in the face.

"Christy is not my girlfriend!" I exclaimed, cheeks on fire. He chuckled at me and waved my retort off.

"You're selling yourself short. You've been great to her, and she's been great to you." he told me, crossing his arms. The surroundings around me were messed up a bit, distorting slightly, in a dreamlike manner.

"She's the wrong species!" I exclaimed, "We should be incompatible, and even the- We are not in a relationship!"

He laughed at me, and then things started to explode. The ceiling was torn apart, but the entire surroundings faded away, unveiling something completely different that I could not even begin to explain. The earth was scorched, the hills burnt and destroyed. Up in the sky, numerous things were exploding violently. I saw giant machines blasting things apart, heard a war that far outclassed our own going on, as the sky lit up with beams and other things. The other Gabriel winced.

"Sorry, kid. You didn't need to see that." he said, looking up at the offending monster, a freaky amorphous creature made of some gray material that shot a giant lance straight at my old friend, piecing his heart all the way through. The damn spike was a foot wide!

I gasped and lunged, but he stopped me, holding up a sphere of aura energy that was twice the size of anything I could manage, and thrust it over his head at the thing behind him, punching straight through it and destroying it. The giant sphere sailed into the sky and exploded against something else with incomprehensible power. I fell back, feeling the impact in my spine as I crashed to the ground and scrambled back. My friend pulled the remaining spike from his chest, and I, wide-eyed, watched the hole through his heart heal right up. "H-holy shit what was that!?"

"A gray" he responded kind of blandly, wiping some blood off of his shirt which was dissolving into aura energy and fading away anyways.

"A what?"

"A gray. Nasty creatures. Big gray floating amorphous spheres that can harden their shells to be like steel and can do that thing with the spikes." he explained "Generally you have to hit it when it's preparing to launch one of those lances. I just kind of bypassed that."

"O-okay? What is going on here!?" I demanded.

more weird things were flying about the sky. Suddenly, I started to slide along the ground as a midnight black beam shot into the sky and a bunch of the things in the air nearby changed directions and sailed straight into it, those things turning into a black substance and being sucked into the beam. I was pulled off my feet and yanked into the air towards it, but my friend grabbed me by the ankle, seemingly unaffected.

"War. Big war. One I'm kind of not supposed to be a part of at the moment." he explained "But I'll resolve it soon enough. I wanted to say hi, and I really thought that shield would last longer."

"Wha- look out!"

A large set of things appeared behind the other Gabriel. I waited for him to do something, and then his white shadow **moved**. It rose straight out of the ground, twisting around him and expanding at the top in a single movement.

Having left Gabriel's normal shadow behind, the thing was a genie-looking thing made out of swirling white energy. It's tail originated from Gabriel's feet and connected into one tail that spun around Gabriel. The main body was **huge**. It towered above the monsters. It's face and head were a featureless ellipse, and it's hands, main body, and arms were massive, as were its hands. I scrambled back further. Despite only being the general shape of something normal, that thing looked fully capable of beating the crap out of me.

"Oh, this is Vortex." my lookalike proclaimed "Say hi, Vortex."

The behemoth turned in place above the other me and seemed to look straight into my soul, before turning back and punching the approaching orange blob thing with enough force to scatter its form across the ground for a long distance, and that stuff sizzled away, creating craters in the landscape.

"Okay… Don't mess with the white shadow." I told myself "Uh… Can I **not** be here?"

"Sure. I was just checking in. Good luck with your new girlfriend."

"She is **not** my-"

And then I woke up, gasping. Christy woke up quickly as well, startled by my experience. "Gabriel? What's happening?" she asked as I got out of the sleeping bag and looked at the sun which was rising. Had all that happened in one night? It was like time was screwed up where the other me was.

I huffed a few times. "The other me… Is an **asshole**." I said. Christy looked startled by this outburst, but she then shrugged and began packing up the sleeping bag. I started to mutter to myself. "Invades my dreams, spouts some nonsense, gets freaking stabbed, is perfectly fine, blows up stuff, gravity beams…"

I continued to mutter as I started to trudge on. "So let me get this straight if I can figure it out properly." Christy replied "based on your disjointed mutterings, you dreamed you were back in your old room in Prokopios, talked to your friend a bit, he said something you didn't like, then the room blew up, your friend got attacked, a black beam of sorts pulled you in and you get saved, and then there's more attacks, and your friend's shadow becomes this hulking monster thing made of energy that completely owns the enemy, and then you just kind of ask to leave and he lets you?"

"Yep," I nodded "That's exactly it." I failed to mention that he had called the kitsune my girlfriend. Absolutely incorrect. We were friends. Who cared a lot about each other and wanted to help each other.

I huffed as we entered the town. Remember, Gabriel, use aura fire only from your tail. I imagined the world shouting that at me all at once. It was effective. I looked around, interested in the surroundings. Normally, roads traveled across the towns. Now, there were dirt paths separating the buildings, as if the taikans walked everywhere. The buildings were made of wood, not stone. Nevertheless, there was the hum of energy in the air, as if these structures had something in them that would withstand just as much as stone could and possibly more, and as if the grass would not stay trampled and the path would not deteriorate.

I padded along, looking at the faces that passed. This place… It looked like it was barely touched by the war, despite the invisible reinforcements. The faces were happy, going about their business. I had seen their type before, the people in the smaller towns that only took part in the war because they happened to be in the same country as the one that was fighting, and nothing else. At the same time, it would be untouched because of all the farming potential, so people got to live happy lives.

I noticed with a sinking heart that nearly half to the taikan women did indeed wear indecent clothing. I was obviously going to be seeing a lot of this. What gives? Christy obviously got her bad habits from a set of the population here.

I sighed in defeat and followed Christy, keeping close unless I had to grab her and make a run for it, as I was faster. I was tense as I moved. Perhaps I pulled off the whole bodyguard look pretty well, as Christy was dressed nicely.

Most of them barely noticed me, actually. The differences that we both had seemed to be ignored. Perhaps they simply didn't care that a taikan with spikes and paws rather than furry hands was walking about. I guess I looked close enough not to draw suspicion.

She walked me around for a while until we reached a store. interestingly enough, it looked nearly identical to the store that old prokopian lady had back at my home. Same kind of merchandise, even. "Hello, sir." Christy said respectfully.

The man at the counter was a white wolf taikan, and clearly a very old one. His glasses were low on his nose at the moment. He smiled kindly at Christy in a way I also recognized as like the old woman from before.

Now I was suspicious. I would look into it later. "Hello, Christy." the man greeted my friend "It's not often you come here."

Christy laughed. "That's what you always say." she reminded the man, who gave a hearty chuckle.

"Yes, yes I do, but this time, you have a friend." he said, turning to me. "Who are you?"

"I'm Gabriel." I said, "Nice to meet you."

He looked over me for a while, my expression, my posture, everything, and burst out laughing again. "Oh, I see! I see!" he exclaimed. "Well, I think that some wrongs could finally be righted again if I do say so myself!"

I leaned away from him. "What?"

He continued chuckling. Christy looked worried. "Sir, are you all right?" she asked, "You're acting oddly…"

He ceased his laughing and wiped at his eyes, dislodging his glasses, which Christy caught with her tail and handed back to him. "My apologies." he said once he calmed down "I just think that soon enough, things can be good again."

" _Again?"_ I asked in my head. When had things ever been good? What did I have to do with any of it? Maybe the old man was getting old, just like the old lady that I knew. Christy bought some things, putting them in my pack (why did I have to carry all of it?) and thanked the man and started walking away.

"Uh… I'll catch up to you in a moment." I said, "Where will you be?"

"Oh, just down the street a ways. You couldn't possibly get lost around here." she said before walking off. I proceeded to lean on the counter and look the man in the eyes.

"Is there something I should know?" I asked.

He sighed. "That young girl… Christy… She's lost a lot of people. Her parents, her sister, and she can't see her friends, and what does she find?" he asked, leaning forward with a kind smile on his face. "She finds a friend. A prokopian friend. One who looks like a taikan in his beast form, and cares about her a lot. She's going to recover eventually, with you around, and I can be happy that someone finally got a happy ending."

I was silent after his explanation. To my mild surprise, he continued. "And this war will continue until someone strikes at the heart of the manner." he said with a slightly lower tone. "Each country has one leader that matters right now. In older times, they were kings. Nowadays, we have the equivalent. There are men that work behind the scenes. One in Taika, one in Prokopios, and both will pass that control on to whoever comes next, and continue the war. They do it because that is what they have known, and they were disgusted by themselves but continued anyways. I do not know why myself but… As much as it pains me to say it, if this world has any chance of peace, both of them must be destroyed."

I nodded in understanding, but… "I'm afraid I won't be the one to do that, sir." I said regretfully "I need to be there for Christy. She's just started to be better off now, and… If I try to go against an entire country, even if she stayed by my side, we would die. We aren't all powerful."

"And I understand." he replied slowly. "...You had better go find your dear friend. The darling might be wondering just what you are talking about. And one last thing… Christy should not despair. Maybe someday you will understand why."

I closed my eyes, nodding. "Thank you, sir." I replied, and swept away with my trench coat billowing out behind me, the ground length article of clothing dragging behind me as I walked.

What did he mean that Christy shouldn't despair?

I approached the girl, who was waiting kind of impatiently for me. "Aren't you quite the chatterbox?" she asked, ruffling my ears playfully before twirling to her left and walking off.

"I just had to clear some things up." I said casually.

"You're playing the bodyguard role way too much." she said, "I get it, you like to look cool in your trench coat and black jeans with your arms crossed like some sort of wannabe badass, but that's just weird."

"Who are you calling a wannabe?" I asked as Christy neared the pub. "And why are we going to the pub again?"

"You, and because the pub is always where you get the real information, usually from the bartender." she said "I've always asked after my sister, and they don't tell me. They don't want to, and I know it's because she's gone and they don't want to shatter that hope because this bartender stays sober if possible. But… I can't stop asking."

I had an idea and stopped her by the arm. "Hey… I have an idea." I offered "Let me ask instead. They don't know me, and they might actually give me a straight answer."

Christy's eyes widened. "You would do that?" she asked, eyes wide and grateful.

"Of course. You might have to not be in there at all, so is there anything else in there you need done?"

"Well, no…"

"Then I'll do that. Why don't you go shopping?" I asked. before walking towards the double doors of the pub. "Go on, then, wannabe… Cripes, I had no way to finish that."

Her laughter was the backdrop to my entrance into the building. There I was, looking generally awesome in my clothing, with my spikes showing, walking up to the counter, where a rather thin taikan man who seemed to be an orange furred fox-like being was pouring a glass for one of his customers.

"Morning." he said, "What do you need?"

I made eye contact. "I need information." I replied casually, sitting down because why wouldn't I. He finished what he was doing and sat down at the stool I had figured would be on his side of the counter from this spot.

"Rumors?" he asked.

"Rumors, facts, evidence." I said, putting my paws on the table. He looked at them, somewhat startled that I didn't have proper hands, but he apparently wrote it off as me being a unique taikan with my spikes and such. "I want to know about a certain someone that I have heard about. White fur, bladed appendages, apparently particularly voluptuous even at the young age of seven."

He stiffened. "Raina? That poor girl?" he asked.

That didn't bode well.

"I believe that was her name, yes." I said. "Who was she?"

"As far as I know, she used to be a sweet little girl alongside her six-tailed sister. Everyone would have heard about the child Christy, and how she escaped and how her sister did not. Loved to paint, I hear, liked using colors of black and red, and managing to create paintings that, despite the pair of colors chosen, never depicted pain or suffering, and seemed nearly tranquil. A sight to behold, I heard."

"And then her sister left." I nodded.

"As I was told, the poor girl was never the same again." he replied, careful to remind me that this was a rumor. "Some think that the people in charge-"

" _Person,"_ I thought in my mind, remembering that old wolf taikan's words.

"-Did something horrible to the poor girl, to try and make her talk about her sister's whereabouts. The six tailed taikan was extremely important for the war effort, and they would have done anything to get her back."

And then he leaned in. "And here is where the facts come in. In later years after that, two and a half to be precise, the guards that came to my pub spoke of that name with a little more fear than I would imagine. Perhaps because they were instructed not to talk about her, or perhaps because she did something that frightened the whole of the group of leaders, but that part's speculation. The girl herself has never been here, to my pub, and I don't think she will be, but one thing's for certain… Those guards still speak her name with fear edging their voices."

I frowned. "When was the last time someone talked about her?" I asked.

"Five minutes ago." the man replied, pointing at some guards who were drinking at the moment. "They uttered the name before they began drinking far more than is reasonable for a town guard under the employment of the government."

"...Thank you." I stood up. "One last thing… Do you think she's still alive?"

"I can't say for certain." he replied, also standing up "but either that girl scared them so bad that they mutter her name in a sense of don't do what she did, and she died, and that fear's still around, or… Or the girl is still alive and her very existence frightens them. I'd wager my money on the latter, because no scare from a dead girl lasts eleven years, in my opinion."

Horrifyingly enough, that made sense. And I knew what was happening. I winced. "Well, thank you." I said shakily "I have an idea of what has been happening to her, and… If she is still alive, there might be a reason to… Travel further inland."

He got **that** pretty quick. "Well, I suppose I don't have any business in your actions, but… Try not to die." he said, "You seem like a good kid."

I thanked him and left quickly, aware that people were staring at the way my overly long trench coat billowed behind me.

"You look like a goddamn superhero with your coat flapping around like a cape and your belt and black jeans." Christy said casually, groceries in her hands that she would add to the food reserves. She had gotten spices, lots of spices, and some delicacies, and some other cooking related materials. "Look, I got myself a smaller frying pan." she said, showing it to me.

I frowned, forgetting momentarily the **extremely important piece of information** that was starting to come out of my mouth. "Why do you need a smaller frying pan?"

"So it'll be closer to a slap on the wrist when you try to help me cook." she replied with a winning smile. I remembered what I was going to tell her, "...Gabriel? What's that look for?" she asked, before placing her hand over her muzzle.

"Christy… Now would be a good time to sit down." I said, taking her by the arm and leading her to a bench, where she obediently sat. "Please, look me in the eyes."

She did, and I started talking. "I was told that two years after you left, guards started whispering her name accompanied with a shudder and some other hushed words. They've been doing the same thing ever since, and apparently it's been getting worse."

She blinked. "But… What does that mean?" she asked. I shuddered, not wanting to continue, but she gripped my paw in her hand tightly. "Gabriel, please…"

"...Christy… No scare lasts eleven years. If they are still afraid when they utter the name, I fear that Raina is currently in a very bad situation."

"But… Alive?"

"Maybe is the best I can do," I said "But you need to hear this, and I need to say it. It's… Hard… Christy, what would scare the guards so? I don't want to make an assumption."

She blinked. "The last time I saw the guards act like that was the last time they made an example of somebody who tried to turn traitor-"

She stopped, her hand over her muzzle again, covering her mouth. "No…" she whispered "For… For eleven years?"

"Possibly." I said slowly "Christy… I don't know what to do. I don't know what I could possibly do to help you."

I realized that while her eyes were still on me, they weren't… **On** me. Glazed, dazed, and horrified, her mind likely flashing through all of the horrors that were occurring miles and miles away. "They're… They're…" she whispered.

I inched closer to her and gave her a comforting friendly hug as she started to sob into my shoulder, tears running down the metal coat and starting to soak the wooden surface of the bench. I let her cry there, as she realized she had never thought could happen before.

"They're torturing her…" she sobbed "For the past eleven years, they've been… Torturing my sister…"

* * *

 **So I have something that I feel I need to disclose to you guys (and gals) reading this. The Kitsune and the Jackal is likely going to be a lot shorter than I initially thought. As soon as Christy said she was going to go to town again, I realized that I didn't have the appropriate filler material for the time, so things will be kicking off much sooner than I would have made it do before. It'll still be a proper story, I can promise you that.**

 **Furthermore, Christy gives a list of her abilities in this chapter. I do not remember if she gave a list of them before, and could not find it in the other chapter (potentially me being oblivious). My point is, the list given in this chapter is the official and correct list.**

 **As for the chapter, it was hopefully interesting. Oh, and the white shadow was explained. Don't mess with Vortex.**

 **SO now you know what the golden switch does. Try and reappraise what the 4WD acronym means now. That's pretty much all I've got today, so... Chapter end. Review please, tell me what you think, and is that enough drama for you?**

 **Good day to you all.**


	4. Chapter Four

**Hey, everyone. My name is Hyperjade.**

 **But you already knew that.**

 **Last chapter ended on an... Awful note. This story seems pretty dark at the moment, and it's true. it does fall on that end of the spectrum more often than TAC or New Age. Though it's not all bad moments.**

 **I feel the obligation to mention that this story will not be dark the entire time. I neither want to make it so or feel confident that I can reliably make it so. So here we go...**

 **Jango: Review time!**

 **Me: You are not answering reviews. Not after yesterday-**

 **Jango: *Paralyzes Hyperjade* Okay! He's too annoying for that to continue. Now let's deal with reviews... MY way. Heheheh...**

 **Yeah, I know, West. It's hard to feel sorry for a character you haven't met at all. Hard to feel sorry for them at all, actually. As for the torture being possible... I don't know about your fancy-schmancy 'real world', but torture can last a long time in the right circumstances. Embrace your dark side! Without, you know, doing bad things. Stop glaring at me, Hyper!**

 **Yeahhh... That was a typo. There is no Riley in this story. Loving the ratings you gave us, Phillip.**

 **Ding ding ding! Nopemanor , or Gem, is the winner! First to determine what the 4WD means! Sorry buddy, the reward is NOT charcoal.**

 **No, Rocketiermaster, it wasn's Sarah. It was Christy's sister Raina.**

 **Hello, Zlaxe. Both Hyper and I pride ourselves in being unpredictable! That being said, I predictably know exactly who Gabriel's lookalike is, but you have to live with me knowing and NOT telling you. Don't know what blue dragon is tho.**

 **And neither of your guesses on the switch are correct, Zlaxe.**

 **Eh, I like the POV switch. It's fun. Pretty sure that you'll like where the story is headed.**

 **Anyways, enjoy the chapter, and continue on.**

* * *

 **The Kitsune and the Jackal: Chapter Four**

How to describe Christy… How could I even do that? With her sobbing into my shoulder, there wasn't anything I could really say. Nothing I could do. People around us walking by looked concerned as they passed, but I waved them away and went on holding Christy. The poor girl.

I frowned. I did not know if that was the truth, but the evidence was stacking up, and I didn't like it. I wanted to say that I knew what Christy would do now, but I shoved down my suspicions. Keeping Christy safe is what mattered to me.

...Wow. I somehow managed to become extremely protective as a result of… Staying in a place where we weren't in danger. Huh.

But that was besides the point. I needed to stay stoic for her so that she would have at least someone to turn to. Someone who she could trust. Right now, that was me and me alone. I would not abandon her to deal with grief on her own.

"Eleven years…" I muttered slowly, once Christy's sobs had degraded into tears and painful breathing. My eyes narrowed. "Is it even possible to survive that long?"

Christy didn't answer, but with all of the taikans' magic, I felt that there was probably something they were doing to keep her intact, or at least heal her afterward. To make an example of what happens to traitors… Just for letting someone go, at that. Perhaps that was part of what kept these people in line in the war, whereas in Prokopios, there were other ways of dealing with potential unrest, such as pretty much indoctrinating people from birth to hate the other side.

That likely happened on both sides, actually.

I had my left paw on her back and my right on the back of her head, trying to comfort her. Hours she sat there, putting all of her weight on me. I have never seen her so broken down. I wondered if I ever would again.

What the hell should a friend say in this sort of situation? I was drawing a blank because any sort of promise would be pathetically worthless. All I could think to say was "I'm sorry, Christy. I am so, so sorry."

My whisper echoed through the air, seeming ever quieter than it was. And yet, Christy's ears still flicked as she heard it. "I know you don't like it when people say they understand, so I won't," I promised, causing her to pull away from my soaked shoulder and look at me with watery eyes. "I don't have anything to say, anything to promise, anything to do for you right here right now, and I am so, so sorry."

She closed her eyes and buried her muzzle into my chest fur, thankfully not straight into my chest spike. "Th-thank you, Gabriel…" she whispered. "Thank you… So much…"

I held her tighter. "Christy…" I said, "If there is **anything** you need… Just tell me. Your well-being is my top priority. Always has been."

When I felt that she was ready to be released, I let her go and slowly moved her so that she was sitting upright again. "What do you need?" I asked her. Christy sniffled and closed her eyes, even more tears streaking from her eyes as her eyelids displaced them.

"I…. I need to think." she murmured.

"Then think," I said softly "Just don't leave my sight, okay?"

"...Okay."

* * *

Christy held her head in her hands nearly an hour later. I had my eyes closed, seeming as though I was not paying attention, but my aura senses were very much active. I saw everything. Even tinged with blue. People coming around corners, people approaching, passing…

"..I have to go," Christy said.

I looked at her, confused. "Go? Go where?"

She brought her head out of her hands, and I tensed. That look did **not** belong on her face. Her eyes were hard, her expression carefully flat. She was shivering.

"Go and get my sister," she growled. She stood up, looking towards me while I stood up with panic on my face.

"Christy…" I said.

"Don't think you can stop me," she growled, standing up. "You're either going to come with me, or go home and be safe."

"Don't be ridiculous!" I said, standing up. "Christy, I'd go anywhere to help you, but-"

"But what!?" she practically snarled.

I gripped her shoulders. " **But** ," I told her "That is exactly **why** they are doing this. We don't know which facility she's in."

"There's only one that matters." Christy retorted, interrupting me.

"Then my next point is all the more valid," I told her "They want **you**. If they are still doing this to her, after **eleven years** , then they still have a trap laid for you. Christy…" I trailed off and then used a much quieter voice: "We can't fight an entire fucking country."

"Don't you think I know that!?" she shouted, pushing past me in a fast walk as she began moving down the road.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I brushed up against Gabe's side as I knocked him aside. Why doesn't he keep that damn gold item where it's not in the way? "Don't you think I know that!?" I shouted as I passed. For him to be so sympathetic only to tell me I couldn't go and save my sister!?

"I have to save her," I growled out, not facing him.

His paw curled around my wrist, halting me in my tracks. I almost smacked him aside with my tail, but I stopped myself just in time. This was my friend I was about to smack aside. I shook in place, not knowing what to think of him. His concern about keeping me safe explained his decision, but he didn't understand that I couldn't just leave-

"I know." Gabe cut off my thoughts, not knowing he was refuting me. "I don't like it, but I **get** it. But you are not allowed to just go running off on my watch. I don't care how long it takes us, how much your sister is in pain, because if we don't go in there prepared, we die. **you** die. I will not let that happen."

Before I could say anything, he turned me around and looked me straight in the eye. "You do **not** , under **any** circumstances, have my permission to get yourself killed. If you want to do this, if you want to take on an entire army, you are going to come with me, and we are going to sit down and figure out just what the hell we're doing. We're going to do it as a team, and we are going to do it where people are not watching." he whispered quietly, but harshly. . His red eyes were very piercing at the moment.

His commands were reasonable, and I realized that I had just been about to unleash the powers of my tails and blaze a trail to the main compound that contained pretty much everything. A massive place it was, instead of being in separated buildings like in Prokopios (don't ask how I know that) and one of the only places not made predominantly of wood. Metal and stone had their places there.

I flinched and gripped my arm with my left hand. I knew that look. He was really, really worried about me, and that piercing glare wasn't anger, it was fear. Fear of me running off and getting myself killed. "I'm sorry…" I whispered.

His eyes softened a bit, and he nodded slowly. "Now, let's stop making a scene and get out of here," he coaxed, leading me away around a corner and into an alley. I had a feeling it wouldn't be our final stop.

"Anger isn't like you, Christy." he said softly "You always think things through, and right now that is the most important thing of all."

"I-I know…" I whispered "Gabriel, I'm sorry. I almost attacked you."

Gabriel raised a brow at me before giving a howl of laughter that was only slightly fake. "Wouldn't be the first," he informed me. His smirk shone for a moment. "Seriously, I would have been fine. Tough as steel here."

He patted his chest with his paw, using enough power to create a solid **thump** sound. Then, he grew serious again. "I know this is no time for jokes and games," he said. "If you are putting your life on the line, then so am I, and I need to know **exactly** what I'm dealing with, and everything else I might possibly want to know.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You're right. You're right." I repeated myself "Okay… The main complex is stone and metal with magical reinforcements and is extremely expansive. Some of the people there spend their entire lives in the building, using its large fields that are circled by the buildings for exercise and training. The halls vary in size, and so does everything else, really. It's kind of a hodgepodge of different building styles as they were built at different times, over time." I explained.

"Sounds a lot like my home," Gabriel muttered. "The buildings are separated, aside from the pretty big main compound, but yeah. Lots of different styles. So we don't know what we'll come across?"

"More like we don't know if we'll have cover or not when we enter a room," Christy said, "So we have to be adaptable when we go in there."

Gabriel nodded. "Okay. Let's find a spot where we won't be interrupted and make a working plan. We still have to travel over there, so perhaps some supplies. Other things we might need."

"Yeah, I ag-"

"I sense him too!"

My one tail that was in the open shot over to where I had heard the movement and wrapped around something invisible the same moment that Gabriel's aura fire rolled out over him, originating from his tail thankfully.

Together we dragged the invisible guy over. Gabriel was surprised, and frankly, so was I. Invisibility was **not** one of my powers.

"Become visible," Gabriel ordered, " **now**."

His glare was more on the anger side this time, and his growl was low and dangerous. The man underneath both of our abilities holding him captive obediently rippled and appeared. He was very mouselike, with long whiskers, and black as night. His tail clearly had the power to become invisible, but I had good ears, and Gabriel had those interesting aura senses.

"Talk," Gabriel commanded, "Because neither of us are in the mood for bullshit right now."

" _That was certainly true."_ I thought, my surprise at Gabriel's change in mood reverting into my earlier anger. I was frightened deep down at that anger. It was nearly bloodlust, and as Gabriel had pretty much said, that wasn't the kind of person I was, or at least who I was supposed to be by my own definition.

"Taikans conspiring against the capital?" he snarled. Well, tried to. Closer to a menacing squeak. "You don't get anything from me. You two are history, and if you're lucky, you'll just be tortured for a little while before they go back to their more, ah, prominent subjects and let you die alone, separate."

"And this is the part where you shut your damn mouth." Gabriel changed his mind, and I curled my tail up to his forehead and began reading his mind. Gabriel gave me a look like: 'Oh right, that', and I got a good amount of knowledge about what the mouse-like taikan had heard from us and what he knew.

"Low-level operative, doesn't know much about anything other than to listen in on innocent civilians' conversations." I announced "But on the safe side…" I focused, and before the mouse man could register that I was using two different powers with the only tail he could see, I erased those memories and let him collapse unconscious onto the ground.

"Thank you for never doing that to me." Gabriel nodded "'cause that looked painful."

"Let's go, Gabe," I said, taking him by the hand as we walked out of the alley and back onto the main roads, where nobody paid us a second glance. Finally, we made it back to the shop that the old white wolf taikan had, and he gave us a smile.

A smile that only faltered for a moment when he seemed to understand that we had bad news on our minds. We asked to be let in, as I had convinced Gabriel that the man was not going to betray us to anybody.

We sat in the back room, which doubled as a cozy bedroom, silent for only a short while.

"Alright." Let's talk wardrobe. This stuff I can easily move in." Gabriel said, pulling at his jeans that were loose enough for proper movement because his legs were that of a lucario. "You, however, are **not** going into battle with a dress on. If we can't move quickly and properly, we're toast. We can use that dress on you as a disguising factor for your tails until we need to get to action, but we will have to find time for you to change…"

He reached into his backpack and dug around a bit while I realized I hadn't brought any other clothing with me, mostly because I really didn't think I would need to. Gabriel solved that for me. "Into this." he finished, pulling my jumpsuit out. "Fits perfectly, allows free movement, and in your colors, too. I grabbed it on my way out in case we found ourselves needing to make a defensive stand. You always were a fast changer when you wanted to be."

I eyed the blue and yellow jumpsuit that so perfectly matched my colors. It would work perfectly, yes. I agreed. I plucked it from his hands and stashed it in my own pack. How lucky was it that he had come prepared

"Time is of the essence," Gabriel said as we discussed what we would need to do in order to get my sister out safely. "We need to get in and get out, so along the way to the main compound, which is about a week and a half and three towns away, we need to try and sneakily find more information about the compound and where everything is. Then, we can go straight to her and get her out. That is our **only** priority, and the **only** risk we are taking."

"I got it," I confirmed.

"We could easily use that mind trick you have on interrogations, and making enemies forget, but we would have to put effort into getting them somewhere alone and hoping that they have more information than inviso-bill back there."

he almost got me to laugh. Almost. The guy was good at that, even in dire circumstances. Keep everything a little lighter. "Yeah, my mind power will help us a large amount. We should get there while there is still snow, as little as there will be when we get there because that is another weapon for me." I pointed out.

"True, so delaying is not really an option until it is absolutely necessary." Gabe nodded. "I'll keep the golden switch-thing on my belt under my trench coat as it could make a decent bludgeoning weapon if things get out of hand. The thing's solid gold, after all."

"Good call." I said, remembering how smashing my hip against the thing in itself had hurt a bit. The heavy item was worth keeping around if just for that. Why we would have a useless ellipse switch thing was beyond our understanding, but the switch itself really didn't matter all that much.

I guess the gold aspect kept us from getting rid of it.

"Christy…" Gabriel said, his voice dropping "You've changed a lot already, after hearing of this. It's worrying me."

I blinked when he voiced his concerns. Was it that obvious? "Gabriel…" I murmured.

"You're entire viewpoint when it comes to fighting has changed. You haven't had a doubt about whether you should fight at all." Gabriel told me, causing me to shiver ever so slightly. "You don't meet my eyes all the time, and you don't laugh at my spectacular jokes."

That last one was one of his 'spectacular' jokes, and as he seemed to expect, I didn't laugh, though I saw the humor in it. "When someone is going into battle, it is best to try and laugh once in a while, because you don't know if you ever will again." Gabriel reasoned.

I shut my eyes, gripping my arm again. The symbol of insecurity was not lost on my best friend. Gabriel leaned forward and gripped my arm in his surprisingly versatile paw. His grip was firm but comforting.

"I'm just so scared…" I admitted, rubbing at the band around my neck again. "I have this horrible rage trying to take me over and lead me to destroy that entire compound, and I'm trying not to show it. I'm scared because for the first time in my life I want to kill somebody. That's what's scaring me. That and the fact that the could easily use Raina's position in their torture chambers against us."

Gabriel moved so that he was no longer sitting on the bed, but on the desk where I was sitting. Next to me now, he gave an air of comfort. "I can't promise it will be okay, Christy," he said sadly "But…." his face took on a determined look "But I **can** promise you that the both of us will try our hardest to succeed, without hesitation."

I made eye contact with him. "Why?" I asked, my voice hoarse. "This isn't your fight. Why put your life on the line for my sister?"

"Because you need her." was his simple answer. He said nothing else. "I need to have a talk with the man that's at the counter right now," he announced, walking through the door. I still didn't really get it. Why waste his life on a mission that could and probably would get both of us killed? Why do that just for me?

Why be so incredibly helpful to me? We were friends, yes, but I didn't understand his reasoning. He literally had nothing to gain from this mission. He was putting his life at risk, and his identity as a prokopian in an entire country of hostile taikans, and wouldn't get anything from it.

Why was he just so… So…

I had no words to properly describe him. He was either the bravest idiot on the planet or the most confident strategist. Either way, he only seemed to be doing it for me. Why me? I was just the person he lived with because he nearly died from the cold. Speaking of which, that made the first explanation the most likely.

The bravest idiot I know…

He opened the door again and closed it behind him slowly, shoulders tense. "So… The guy **may** have customers right now. He introduced me as a temporary helper for a small amount of pay as a traveler, and they didn't recognize me from anything. Pretty sure they bought it." he said, s"Wrong place wrong time."

I let out my breath. "Okay… That's not fun." I said, "That sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen."

"Yyyep." he said slowly "So I'm just gonna grab these…"

He scooped up some things that he was apparently supposed to get (to play the part) and booked it out the door. Get it? He was carrying **books**. Alongside other things. Gabriel was right. When you don't know if you're ever going to laugh again after something, it's best to find excuses to laugh, no matter how dire the circumstances.

But Raina needed me, and I needed to think of her. I needed to remember her. What would she look like now? Her white fur had reached how long it would normally be when I left… Her bladed horn on the side of her head was going to have grown with her, probably being a decent size compared to her head. She had always been unnaturally voluptuous, considering that she was so at seven.

Wide, innocent eyes was what I remembered from her. Sometimes her white fur would have black and red paint dried in it from painting. It wasn't blood red, it was more like… Cherry. She always had that innocent smile on her.

That innocence would never cross her face again.

My hands curled into fists, rustling the fur on my fingers and palms.

I unclenched them. I needed to stay calm. Besides, my fists wouldn't do much. I wasn't physically that strong, even if I could lift many times my weight with my tails. Strength was also a useful power. But it did not apply to anything other than my tails.

I buried my face in my hands. I didn't know if I could do this, if I was powerful enough to take on an army, even with Gabriel at my side, supporting me wholeheartedly. Fear scratched and bit at the back of my mind, telling me that if we did this, we would die. Or be tortured, or something else. Something even more horrifying….

I **really** needed to stop bringing my hand up to the band around my neck.

Gabriel came back in, the fake smile on his face dropping. He saw me rubbing my neck, and came over. "Christy, what's wrong?" he asked. He put his hand on my back and rubbed it a bit, which felt very relaxing and nice. My hands fell to my sides as I let my thoughts slip away for the moment… Except for the secret I needed to keep from everyone, even him. "It's… I'm okay, Gabe." I lied.

He didn't buy it, but he didn't pry. The jackal looked around at the lack of windows in the room. He shook his head as if discounting something. The odd extensions behind his head vibrated a bit, but he evidently came up with nothing.

"I could go into my other form, it's safe enough, but I don't think it's a good idea. I need to get into the habit of staying in this form while I can, so I can't go around switching back and forth like I normally would."

"Both of your forms are a part of your life." I reasoned. "You don't want to discount one."

"Maybe not, but this is hostile territory." Gabriel pointed out. "Not much of a choice to make."

I sighed and nodded in agreement.

"I may need my bow at some point, which is why I would probably ask for cover or something before transforming, shooting, and then changing back. I'm fluent enough to get it, you've seen me."

"I have indeed." I nodded. "Let's get out of here soon, all right? After we discuss the initial plan. It might change as we go on through the country, so it's best to keep that in mind."

"You're right. Let's get to it." Gabriel agreed, sitting back on the bed.

* * *

Discussing plans turned out to be a lot of rinse and repeat. I told him what I knew, and we drew maps that he stored away. I warned him that they might not be perfectly accurate, **especially** after so many years of being gone. Other than that, though, it was 'if you come to an enemy around here, what do you do, and remember to improvise if you can see it won't work'.

We could not be fully prepared for this, but we had to try. We **had** to. My sister was in there. She was trapped, with people who would perhaps gleefully tear into her and make her bleed and then heal her. Just to make her last longer…

Gabe peeked out the door, greeted by the old man. His sort-of wizened face still had that smile of his on it. "Are you well, children?" he asked, and we emerged to talk to him.

"No," I responded truthfully "But it has to be done."

"I understand," he replied sadly. "If you would please, Christy, I feel as though your friend has some questions for me."

Both Gabriel and I blinked in surprise, though Gabe said "How did you know?", whilst I wondered what he could want to say. But I had been asked to leave the two, so I walked out from the counter and back under the blue sky.

I stood far enough away not to overhear, making certain that my other tails were contained in my dress without being obvious, and watching them talk. Gabriel seemed very concerned, gesturing and becoming agitated for a moment. I could read his lips when we said 'and all we have is a bow and a useless piece of gold with a switch on it.'

He held up the item for emphasis, hefting its gold weight with little effort. The old wolf's brows peaked with interest or something, and Gabriel handed it to him. The taikan found that it was particularly heavy, and almost dropped it, causing Gabriel to snatch it out of the air.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

"Sorry about that, sir." I apologized, holding it up again. "It's quite the paperweight, but I can't make anything of it otherwise."

"Neither can I." he responded "Other than the letters matching your first initials, there is nothing that truly tells me what this might be."

"Just the letters on the side of it," I grumbled, turning it over. "Sorry, two letters and a number. I can't make heads or tails of them."

He chuckled. "Neither can I." he admitted, but then his expression turned somber. "But that is not truly what is bothering you, is it?" he asked.

"No…" I said, leaning on the counter. "It's Christy," I said, seeing that she had turned away and wasn't reading my lips or something. You never know when people can do that. "She's in bad shape, and I can't really help her, but she;\'s acting odd in other ways. She won't stop rubbing her neck, specifically that collar thing around her neck. The one with the little writing on it."

I kept my eye on his face. The frown was deepening. "Yes… Poor girl."

I turned to him. "Do you know about it? I get so worried when she does it because her face kind of goes blank." I asked.

"...I do, but this is the kind of secret that she must tell you when she is ready, or when it is necessary. Please don't push her." he pleaded "That is the most private thing out there in Taika. You don't ask why someone is wearing such a thing."

I looked over at Christy, who was inspecting the sky, and the clouds, as if judging what the weather could be. She was sniffing the air as well. "Alright." I relented "I won't pry. Just tell me… is it dangerous?"

"...If in the hands of the wrong person," he replied slowly "Yes. And you must be careful. Do not let her take it off."

My face hardened. "I won't," I said.

"I must ask you for something before you go to the main military compound."

I turned to him. "Anything." I pledged, standing tall before him.

He closed his eyes. "Peace cannot come until someone brings the two countries together. I may not wish it, but there are two people in the way to peace. They are Boreas and Malvolio, the self-proclaimed leaders of the countries. They are aging, of course, yet still dangerous. This war may have begun dying out by this time had they not taken control. The two hate each other so much… If one is destroyed, the other will sweep through on a path of destruction as the first country destabilizes."

I flinched. That sounded really bad. "What do you want me to do about it?" I asked. He sighed, pushing his glasses further up his snout.

"If you are forced to kill Malvolio to protect the ones you care about, everything will be lost unless you make haste and destroy Boreas as well." he stated grimly "Please, if you value the lives of everyone in the countries, both must be destroyed."

My eyes probably were covered in shadow. "...I get it. Our mission is to get in and get out, but… If we have no choice and have to kill him, then we have to go and strike at the other as well, before the taikans are wiped out. If it comes to that, I'll do it." I promised. "And I'll tell Christy that, too."

"I feel that that would be best," he murmured. "As much as it pains me to end Malvolio and Boreas. And if you meet a prokopian named Glynda, send her my regards. I have my doubts I will ever see her again."

I did not understand how he would know someone from my country, but I nodded anyways. "I promise I will," I said, "if I ever see her."

"Thank you, child." he said softly "now, I believe you have something to do."

"Of course," I said, getting out into the sunlight once more and running to Christy. "Alright." I said with a raised voice, as I was a decent distance from her for the moment.

"You got everything we need?" she asked, a little impatient.

"Everything's in order," I confirmed "But it's going to be a long trek. Are you ready to go?"

"Yes." she said, "For my sister."

I nodded grimly and let her lead me out of the town.

* * *

It turns out that dirt roads are very, very helpful. So are maps. So is magic. Convenience!

I didn't know whether to give myself a mental smack or give out a mental chuckle. I meant it when I said that before you go into battle, you want to find some degree of humor in life. Before your life ends.

But this situation… Did it even qualify as a battle? I really was not certain. I was looking at it from every angle, and this rescue mission was utterly suicide. But we would not be deterred because the one single person that Christy cared for the most needed us to at least try. and if Christy and I died, then they would have no need to keep hurting Raina, so they would either let her go… Or kill her. Either way, her pain would end.

I had a distinct feeling that the three of us were going to die in a week and three days. And Christy was having trouble even going in that direction. Head down, facing the ground, dragging her feet. Her yellow half reflected the sun above, seeming much brighter than her other half, the blue half that sunk into each shadow as if her true colors were black and yellow.

It scared me that a lot of the trip was spent without talking. Do I talk to her? Do I tell her what I am thinking? No. I walk along the path like an automaton and think so hard that my head starts to hurt.

Because I was afraid. Afraid that Christy was going to get herself killed doing this, and that I wasn't strong enough to protect her. And maybe because I was afraid of the silence, but breaking it wasn't something I could just do.

I closed my eyes, checking my surroundings again. I realized it was pointless to bother with observing things normally and just kept my aura senses up. Eyes closed, focusing. Christy didn't even **notice**.

She was just getting worse, and I didn't know what to do.

For hours we walked, as the afternoon started to become evening. That was when Christy grabbed me by the arm. "Gabe?" she asked uncertainly.

I led her to the side of the road, opening my eyes and meeting hers. "What do you need, Christy?" I asked softly. She adopted that insecure stance again; She gripped her left arm with her right hand, which crossed over her stomach as she held her left arm to her body.

"I… I wanted to know why you stopped talking." she admitted.

I sighed. A long, drawn out sigh. I sat down on the dirt, the twigs, and grass that was available due to the lack of snow because of this tree here. My trench coat prevented the dirt from getting to my pants, acting as a tarp of sorts.

I closed my eyes as I rested, my back against a tree while Christy sat next to me. Finally, I looked her in the eyes again. "I just don't have anything to say. Because I'll make things worse." I told her "All I can think of are wisecracks or promises I can't keep. Trying my best isn't going to do jack shit when we're in that compound. Either we take this very carefully, and die later, or rush in and die early. And what I really want is to protect you."

She flinched and looked down.

"You're my best friend," I told her "I wouldn't just walk away and let you get yourself killed. What would I do with myself? Basically nothing. I had no purpose. Zero. Until I met you and found some sort of degree of humor and livelihood to life other than losing games of chess to my lookalike. And now I can't say a word without realizing that it will either accomplish nothing or make you feel worse."

She blinked at the phrase 'best friend', but went back to grimacing as I continued speaking. It was true, I did not know what to make of her, really. Who was she to me? Why did it feel like my own personal health didn't mean a thing when it came to protecting her? Why was it hard to look away?

We were little more than a week from our probable deaths, and if we somehow lived, I had the sinking feeling that we would have no choice but to destroy this Malvolio that was apparently in charge. I wondered with a sinking heart what the old man at the shop could have known about the man in charge, for him to be so sad about it.

And I remembered the name Glynda. From somewhere… Like a serious case of deja vu and I didn't like it.

"The fact is, we both swore to stay out of this war and here we are, prepared to throw ourselves into it with all the speed and grace of a drunk suicide bomber."

Now she really flinched at the comparison I made, but evidently saw my point. She understood that I thought that we were running straight to our deaths like foolish drunks, and yet there was still something that had to be done in the main military compound in the capital.

Rebels with a cause, the both of us.

"Christy, the man in charge, Malvolio… The old shopkeeper told me about him… If we're forced to kill him, then we have to move and take down the other leader before one nation can obliterate the other. And I think that also scares me; we might very well have to kill somebody. In fact, it's probable that we will in order to get your sister out safely. This entire situation could blow so out of proportion that we would pretty much be the third party in the war we've been trying to avoid all of our lives. Because if we don't, and if it comes to it, one of the sides are going to be completely wiped out, eradicated."

Christy closed her eyes.

"...That's why I'm so afraid." I explained "because this cannot end well for us, and if we are somehow successful here, my money is on the fact that we will have to do it to an entirely different compound, and at the absolute minimum end the lives of two people personally. I'm also frightened because I don't want to lose you… Or… Or anyone. And… I don't know…" I sunk my muzzle in between my crossed arms over my knees. "I'm lost," I complained.

Christy rested her hand on my knee, shifting so that she was sitting next to me. "I'm lost, too," she whispered.

And that was just it, wasn't it? Two lost children, playing in the snow in their little home far from civilization like some sort of fairy tale. But fairy tales aren't real, and cold reality was always going to come and play the part of the bucket of ice water thrown on someone's head to wake them up. That's what we were. Lost.

Lost, but not alone.

"Lost, but… Not alone." I echoed my own thoughts. I put my paw on her arm. "Not alone."

"...Not alone," she whispered back. "...I'm tired, Gabe."

"Then let's rest for a while," I responded "We don't have anything incriminating on us that we can't keep where nobody could get to it without waking us up, we planned that. So… Let's go to sleep."

"Okay." Christy murmured, releasing a long, drawn out sigh and letting her hand slip off of my knee as she basically went limp against the tree that I was already on. I too relaxed all of my muscles and wished that I could dream of the days when the fantasy ending was within reach.

somehow, I didn't think I would get my wish.

* * *

I hate being right.

"Seriously, you invading my dreams is getting repetitive," I growled at my lookalike, who was in human form at the moment. He chuckled.

"You'd probably want a nice dream about flowers and rainbows and fantasy, I'd wager," he figured. "Yeah, but a good conversation between old friends wouldn't go amiss, yes?"

"Raina's life is at stake." I reminded him "Good conversations and jokes are out the window."

He walked over and clapped me on the shoulder. "That's where you're wrong, kiddo," he said. 'Kiddo' was a new one. "This is a dream. You're sleeping. You won't lose or gain anything at all by joking around or talking like everything is normal. In fact, as you said yourself, it can be an escape of sorts. Act like everything is going to be fine when we all know it won't be, only keeping the slightest amount of focus on reality until the battle starts, in which you try your best to survive. Rinse and repeat."

That sounded an awful lot like my 'laugh before a battle' analogy. If anything, it was an extension of it. He had said that I had said it myself, which was kind of the opposite of a summary. "Okay, fine, it's a dream," I muttered, "Where the hell are we this time?" I inquired, looking around at my surroundings.

"...Wow." I said, finally catching on to what the heck I was looking at. A tiny, plateau-like flat surface was what we stood on, made of stone, with edges dropping on all sides. The view? Considering that it was such a tiny plateau… which served as the peak of a giant freaking mountain on a cloudless day, I could see **everything**.

He ruffled my ears with his hand. "Yep.," he said as I ducked away. "Some unnamed mountain in some unnamed corner of the world. A good place to hike to, though the mountain doesn't have any good places for homes nearby because of the jagged hills nearby. Sadly, it would be very, very difficult for you to see it in person."

"I am now, aren't I?" I asked, looking down the sheer surface of the mountain. A lot of gray and shadows. No snow. The temperature was warm.

"True," he admitted. "I saw the mountain and got a stroke of an idea, so I carved up a path up the mountain so that people can get up here without rock climbing. Made it look natural and stuff, so people aren't walking up on a staircase. Although…" he said thoughtfully "that would add to the mystery value of the mountain if there was this old looking staircase on a mountain that was pretty much undiscovered."

"Mystery, or sensible course of action. Hmm, I wonder." I quipped. "Hmm... Ah… Yeah. Mystery it is. I'm not one for sensible courses of action."

"Definitely not," he said. "And don't get me wrong, I'm proud. You'd go to the ends of the earth to save your girlfriend's sister, just because you can help."

"She is not my girlfriend!" I exclaimed "And what happened to you? You've been way more of an asshole in my dreams than before I left."

"Mostly because you find humor in it." he said.

I jerked my head to the side for a moment before straightening it, in acknowledgment. "But I have one question…." I started, trailing off for a moment. "If you're so freaking powerful, why don't you just go save Raina yourself? Or… Stop this war?

He attained a sad look. My eyes widened. **That** was new. The boy seemed to fall over towards the rock surface, but a chair made of rock jutted from the ground as he fell into it, rippling with energy as it had been pulled up for that express purpose.

"...I could," he said "With a snap of my fingers, I could, but like the rest of my family, my power is… Volatile. I could accidentally do far more damage than I intended while trying. It's a fear factor, you know. I could save everyone with a snap of my fingers, fix life, end the war peacefully… But at the same time, I could accidentally destroy them with that same snap of the fingers. I can't take that risk… There is so much potential for peace."

he shook his head while I stared at him, bewildered. He continued: "So many innocent people… So many people that would just like to have this war end and the only thing keeping them from doing so is two men in charge, who also could have been very different. A nasty series of unfortunate events led to this day. I don't want to be the finally unfortunate event that wipes everything out. I'm… Scared that instead of saving everyone, everyone will die. And I can't just take that risk. I am not skilled enough, even after billions of years."

I stared at him, dumbfounded. I didn't know what to make of that. "But you were blasting those gel things apart in the last dream." I reminded him.

"Those were attacks," he explained. "Manipulative energy is far more difficult to control than physical, destructive energy. I am more threatening when I start manipulating things and events than when I am attacking, even if the threat on both ends is technically infinite if I want it to be…"

His voice trailed off slowly, becoming more of a whisper. But it rose in volume again soon enough. "But you don't have that on your shoulders." he said, standing up and facing me. "You are not a danger to everything you care about, and so can take risks and save lives without fearing destroying everything you care about in the process."

"I… Is there anything to say to that?" I asked hesitantly. There really wasn't. I mean that's some really heavy stuff. "I mean… You've got all of that power, but using it could just do more damage. I can't understand how that feels."

"I appreciate you making the attempt," he sighed, looking at the throne-like chair that sat at the edge of the plateau. It faced the greatest angle of the view. "You know, I think I'll keep that there, and make a staircase where the 'natural' path was. Nice and mysterious, when it's discovered someday in the future."

"What's next, a natural looking chess board out of stone and moss?" I asked, "Are you just going to cover the planet with stone constructions?"

"Nah, just a few," he refuted, waving it off. "but that is an idea. Anyways, I'll let you get back to it, and maybe…"

he got a wicked grin that promised something I wasn't going to like, humorous as it might be. "No," I said "Whatever you're planning for my dream, don't do it. No-!"

A flash, and I was suddenly surrounded by the same stuff he had mentioned before; Flowers and rainbows and fantasy stuff that moved around me. I was getting really, really irritated with my lookalike, but I expected he was laughing at my current expression.

So I sat down there and closed my eyes and pretended that he hadn't just slammed me into a cartoon looking place for his amusement. Or someone else if he talks about it. This is gonna be one of the stories he tells his best friends while they all laugh at me, I know it.

The music in the background eventually made me yearn to wake up, and then I just did. My head shot up, and some sound escaped my mouth that I did not bother to identify, and I looked wildly around while I got to my feet quickly.

There wasn't anybody but Christy here, and Christy was making breakfast. She was looking at me weirdly like she would when I did something strange on a normal day, or something unexpected. I shivered, remembering that experience. At least having a conversation with my old friend was cool.

"Did you just say 'no more rainbows'?" she asked me, and I proceeded to wish that it was actually possible to die from embarrassment.

"Uh… You must have heard wrong." I said quickly, catching her raised brow before I dropped my head. "Imaginary, all powerful friend," I muttered, "The guy acts like my greatest friend and the biggest asshole at the same time."

"'No more rainbows'" she repeated in a deadpan.

"Yes, yes, I get it," I muttered. "Fine."

I walked over to where she was preparing food with what looked like a portable stove and reached out to help. I got a frying pan to the back of my paw for my troubles.

"Fine!" I exclaimed, "No helping either!"

"You stay away from my cooking materials." she threatened playfully "You want breakfast to be edible, right?"

I huffed as my stomach growled practically in response. "Yes…" I fake pouted.

"Then be a good boy and wait," she ordered, a smile on her face. I laughed and went back to sitting against the tree. The sun was rising, turning the clouds around the sun into a brilliant array of color. Impressive how sleep tends to speed that time up.

"If you say so, fox girl," I replied. She seemed to consider throwing a utensil at me but eventually shook her head with a smile on her face. This was the Christy I knew. The one that I thought was happy with who she was. For her to have that smile on her face meant a lot to me.

I really ought to see that smile more often. "Why are you staring at me?" she asked. Okay, maybe not.

"Just… Appreciating your smile." I said lamely. Her eyebrow was up again, and I was glad that my fur guarded somewhat against the heating of my face. "That… That came out wrong."

"Did it?" she asked.

"Uh… Yes?"

She rolled her big blue eyes. "Get over here and get your breakfast before you pass out again."

I perked up quickly. "Will do!"

She chuckled as I bounded forward like an excited dog, which I guess I sort of was. I could **smell** the delicious mix of wonderful consumables. I gratefully accepted the plate she gave me and the two of us started eating. She could make easily made stuff taste brilliant with the extra added spices and things.

Utterly delicious.

"One apple for you," Christy said as she tossed the complementary apple over to me, which I caught with both paws and immediately munched on. "Manners traded for speed. And you called **me** indecent."

"Hey!" I complained. "Indecent clothing is much worse than indecent table manners. There isn't even a table."

"Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that, with apple juices making your coat sticky. Don't expect any hugs for a while." she told me. I raised my brow, wondering when the last time she had hugged me in a nice way was. Only comforting hugs between us so far.

"Why?" I asked, "Are you so eager to hug me?"

"What do you mea- No!"

"Uh-huh."

She glowered and finished her food before starting to pack her stuff away. "Point Gabriel!" I exclaimed, pumping my paw in the air. That time, it was a blue and yellow tail that punished me for my shenanigans while the both of us laughed. Even being dangled upside down from my ankles as she mock-frowned at me.

"Shall we do this dance again?" I asked, preparing to lift her up with my aura fire, which would basically be achieving flight. However, before I could, I realized something, and I stopped. "...We can't waste a bunch of energy." I reminded her.

"Right," she said, setting me down properly. "Hostile territory."

"...Yeah." I nodded. The fun was over, so we packed up and walked on.

For days, it went like that. No more dream invasions from my friend. Five days passed before we reached the next town, and then we decided to restock. I walked into the nearby bar, for the same reasons that I went into the first ones, We talked now, though we sometimes acted subdued. It was easier to understand how to keep ourselves in decent spirits. We restocked, and we were going to move on.

However…

"You two." A guard stepped out in front of us as we began to leave the city. Another quickly slid behind us, and I cursed mentally. "Travelers are required to check in at the city hall before departure," he reminded us in a gruff voice.

"Damien, there is no need to be so hostile." the guard behind me said in a much calmer and inviting voice. "They're children. Leave them to me."

"...Fine. You are responsible for them, Aminity" he growled and continued on his patrol.

Christy breathed out heavily. "All right…" she said slowly, as I turned.

"Is it necessary to jumpscare some traveling teenagers?" I asked, adding a touch of bitterness to my voice as if this has happened before. The female taikan was mostly covered in armor though she had no helmet. She was a doe taikan, her mostly black eyes staring right into mine. Her armor was black, I noticed, and I also noticed that her sword was **really** big. I didn't want to get in a fight with her. That black blade looked **mean**.

"I am sorry for my companion." Aminity apologized with a kind tone. "Damien is very aggressive towards people he has never seen before."

" _Scary looking person turns out to be nice cliche…"_ I thought.

"It's all right." Christy put in. "Nobody's hurt. I'm afraid I'm not exactly certain where the city hall is in this town, and frankly I've never heard of the rule yet."

Aminity sighed. "That is because it is a new sanction from the main military compound, otherwise known as the government," she replied in a way that made me think she didn't approve fully. "The news is spreading throughout the towns, at an admittedly slow and arduous pace."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Because the public is quickly and increasingly realizing that the war is pointless," she said "But as for now, there are enough warmongering folks in charge of each country to strongarm the commoners into battle. And a rebellion is out of the question because both countries would have to have a rebellion at the same precise time and everyone knows it." Aminity explained what we already knew.

Before she could ask how we apparently didn't know, I spoke up again. "I think that it is very good that we at least understand that," I said, "That, not every single person wants this."

"I agree," Aminity said. It was odd hearing this from a guard, I noted. "I would fight if asked" she clarified "However… I cannot say I am unhappy being placed as a guard instead."

I nodded, and Christy said thank you. The woman casually pointed us in the direction of the city hall, and the lot of us set off. I met her eyes without turning my head, whispering: "She's following us."

"Well, yeah," Christy replied softly. "She doesn't recognize us."

"Which is great news for you, but potentially bad news for both of us." I hissed "We have all that we need. We can't go frolicking in the central decision-making center of the town itself."

"I know that, but we don't have a choice, and we won't have one in each city past this either." she pointed out quietly.

I decided to change the topic. "Say, you haven't been getting any odd dreams lately, right?" I asked her, my voice loud enough for the rather sweet dangerous looking guard.

"Nope." she replied, "You're the one with the hallucinations during your sleep."

"Hallucinations!?" I fake-gasped. She smacked me in the arm with a smile on her face.

"Shut up," she said… Affectionately? "I want to put my mind back on my sister right now. But we'll continue this later."

Her promise died out as she turned her thoughts to how best to get her sister out of the compound. I paid attention to where we were going, taking her arm to lead her around corners as she became unfocused, with tears in her eyes once more. This was routine now.

I didn't need to keep reiterating Raina's… Condition at the moment. That would distract me. I kept my aura senses active, keeping an eye on the guard that was trailing us. Aminity seemed unconcerned at the moment. I wondered if she would care if we just kind of turned around and headed out again. I wasn't going to take that chance, of course.

"Neat," I commented, looking at the building we were approaching. But Christy tensed.

"We're in trouble," she whispered. "That's an identifier over the door."

I narrowed my eyes at it. A hovering orb built out of floating runes that had a blue glowing light in it. "Joy. What will it do?"

"Name… time of arrival… Basic descriptions like height and weight… And species." she whispered.

Now I was worried. "Oh shit…" I said "plan?"

"I don't have one." she whispered.

"Backtrack?"

"Too suspicious."

"Stop dead at the entrance?"

"...If it looks like we're waiting for her." Christy said. Our hushed whispering ceased as we stopped by the door and turned halfway so that we were facing each other, and turned our heads to face Aminity herself.

The doe taikan stopped between the two of us while we tried to pretend that we were anything but tense. Stall for time, Gabriel. I can practically hear somebody screaming it at me. Aminity (wow, that name was hard to say correctly) was curiously looking at us.

"I didn't know they had these around the entrances to the town and city halls now." Christy began a conversation.

"A secondary aspect of the change set by the government," Aminity confirmed. "Is it important?"

"Yeah…" Christy replied "These things give a lot of personal information about people who come here regularly, which would be a lot of the citizens. An invasion of privacy. I was under the impression that the laws regarding standing citizen privacy still stood."

Christy had successfully made the scary armored doe taikan with the sweet attitude uncomfortable. "They are… A formality. Unless they are brought up in discussion, and even then, you will find that complaining about it only buys you time."

Christy glanced at me, uncertain of how to go forward. But I had an idea. "Aminity…" I said slowly "I am certain that we don't need that information being available to people that we don't know. How harsh is the punishment for leaving the town without checking in?"

My question had the subdued guard frowning. "They will be less than the written creed demanded," she admitted "because the requirements on paper are utterly ridiculous, but there will be more than a slap on the wrist.:

"How much more?" Christy asked, seeing me wince.

"Anyone who takes the law literally would take you in for imprisonment first," she said "before unleashing a variety of punishments I do not want to go into detail about. Anyone who would prefer to treat the offense like it actually is… Honestly, would let them go with their privacy intact." Aminity explained.

I stepped forward slowly. "And will we be leaving with our privacy intact?" I asked her quietly, forcing some pleading into my voice. Now Aminity frowned. The guard was against disobeying the law, but she knew that the law was ridiculous and wouldn't accomplish anything.

Actually, it kind of would have just now, but that's besides the point.

Aminity looked suspicious now. What had changed? Her hand twitched, likely her sword hand, as the blade's handle was on the same side of her. The midnight black edge that was as wide as she was and almost as long as she was tall looked rather menacing. She was a nice girl, but she wouldn't be if she thought that we were a threat.

"...Yes," she decided eventually, losing the tension. "You kids go on." she continued in that sweet voice "Dragging you into business you have no place in yet would not be kind of me. No others were present when we stopped, so for all anyone knows, you were just leaving. I will escort you to the edge of town."

We smiled. "Thank you, Miss," we both said, gratitude lacing our voices. That had been **far** too close. The older woman smiled before leading us away. A silent sigh of relief- we were going to be okay.

The trip back out of town was just as fast as the trip back into it, so… Slow. I tried to keep my pace the same, tried to keep a calm collected expression. Christy looked worried, tense. She needed to calm down, and so I did the only thing I could think of to calm her.

I rubbed her arm with my hand, giving her a reassuring look when she turned to me. Her eyes met mine, and I made certain to convey the message that we would be just fine. She sighed aloud and smiled, actually leaning into me. I realized that this was because Aminity was looking back at us. Create the image of people who care very much for each other, and it softens the heart further.

I felt bad for deceiving her, she was very nice to me, but that sword was scary and her armor had just enough spikes on the shoulders and in other places to also look scary. That, and nice as she was, she was technically a threat right now. Literally every other living being we met right now was a threat.

The gate stood before us now, and I tried not to thank Aminity too quickly before Christy and I took off. Tried to walk casually. Successfully walked casually.

I sensed Aminity turn away before my range of vision ran out, and I sighed with relief. "It's okay," I said, my voice still soft. "We're going to be fine."

"I'm glad it worked." she whispered back "Because everything could have been brought crashing down if we were discovered.

I grimaced. "Yeah…" I nodded.

We walked for several miles until we were surrounded by forest, and it was lunchtime soon. Again the trail was silent. We knew that we had to be more careful.

"...If we're more conservative with our food…" I offered "We might be able to skip the next town."

"Do you really want to do that?" Christy asked. It was rhetorical. We both knew I didn't. "Because if we're going to go into battle… You said that we should find ways to laugh because we likely never will again. The same is true with food. And we have to rest. We have to take lengthy breaks if we just walk all morning with large packs, so of course we have the time… Is there any point in not doing so? Lastly… If we're careful, it won't matter. And maybe we'll spend the night in one of the towns. We might have to if the timing is poor."

Her reasoning snapped me out of it. "Yeah." I agreed. I sat against another tree on the side of the road. "You're right."

The disjointed conversation fell into silence as I let Christy cook. Cooking took her mind off of some things. It allowed her to focus on something and relax. She wasn't forgetting the point of this venture, not by a long shot, but as long as she was relaxing, and sleeping, and not suffering from nightmares… She would be okay.

I stiffened slightly. What if she was experiencing nightmares? I always woke up after her. She didn't show any sign of needing more rest, but that didn't mean she wasn't hiding it. I gazed at her eyes while she kept her eyes on the food in the pot as it simmered.

She didn't have bags under her eyes… None of her powers involved having excessive amounts of energy… She didn't **look** like she was missing out on sleep, but… Was she good enough to keep that from me?

Who was I kidding? I've lived with her for more than a month. I looked at her posture, her motions… She was absolutely tired. Perhaps not exhausted, but she wasn't sleeping as much as she should be. "Christy…" I said softly, slowly. "Why didn't you tell me you've been sleeping less?"

She stiffened.

"Is there any way that I can help you?" I pleaded, drawing a bit closer.

"...No," she said with finality. "You can't help me. I won't be all right until Raina is found and okay."

I closed my eyes. I didn't understand fully how painful this must be for her as I had no siblings or family that I knew of to mourn… I did not know Christy, not properly. Not in the way that would matter. It was a crushing reality that I could not understand how to console her or help her. But… "I need you to try and sleep, at least." I said "You need as much energy as you can get when we have to… Fight."

Christy's mouth tightened. "I know that Gabriel," she whispered, "I just wish I knew how."

"We'll figure it out," I said, almost to myself. She needed something that would keep her comforted even during sleep. What would that be?

I shook my head. There was a lot we didn't know how to deal with right now. When you get a rescue mission thrown at you and are completely unprepared, that tends to happen. We were equipped like casual travelers, not warriors. Only our powers had us above the others. Even my bow just knocked things back because it's default aura arrow did just that.

We started eating a few minutes later. Lunch was quick, easy to make and eat, and yet Christy still did an excellent job. It's good to make a habit of learning how to eat properly in both forms when you are my species, so you don't look like an unnecessarily messy eater, but that's exactly what I was anyways.

I helped Christy up, starting to put the stuff away. She smiled and took my arm as we turned to continue onward.

Only to stop and blink a few times. The sky looked like it was twilight. The trees seemed to have lost a little of their color. I tensed, activating my aura sense. Nothing. Nada. What the heck was this new mess?

Christy looked just as confused as I was. She whipped her head about, keeping herself close to me in fear. In fact, she was pressed against my side, worried. I myself was worried; worried that she was wrong to depend on me. She could defend herself, I knew it, but we needed to keep our identities hidden, and only one blue and yellow fox girl had six tails.

I looked all around us with my aura senses. I didn't see anything for a bit, but my eyes snapped open as I gasped in surprise.

With a ' **voooon…** ' sound, shadows erupted from the ground on the path ahead, rising in trails of shadow, interspersing to create a rippling pillar of energy. As we watched, tense, the pillar began to fade, showing a figure within them.

Black armor, spikes, extended shoulder pads, heavy looking and sleek aside from the spikes and shoulder pads. Boots that were more like cleats. Black eyes were somehow visible, piercing me straight through. No sword hung on her back, but she was easily recognizable.

"Ah…" I muttered, bringing Christy behind my back. "Aminity."

Her eyes became shadowed as she was fully visible. "You thought you could slip past me…" she muttered "No. I know a threat to our country when I see one."

I stiffened.

"How many do you intend to destroy?" she asked darkly "Have you already attacked those in the outlying villages?"

"What!?" Christy exclaimed, getting in her view "We-"

"And you, evidently there is something off about you." Aminity interrupted "because to follow the likes of him… No matter."

She stood up straight. Her deer tail had a purplish aura about it, and I knew that she was exercising her magic power. Christy didn't know what to make of the power either. It was clearly a very powerful one, considering it was leeching the color out of everything. "You are a threat to the entire country of Taika, an enemy in unfriendly territory, walking amongst innocents as if it is your birthright, sent here as a spy by your government. I know how this goes," she said. Her arm shot out sideways, and Aminity's blade too shot out along with it, a blade that was as wide as her and maybe a foot shorter than she was tall. And jet black. Double edged and pointed with a short and oddly angled point. "Your campaign ends here. I will not allow you to take innocent lives." she snarled.

" **Prokopian.** "

* * *

 **Foreboding, isn't it? Or rather, suspenseful. Cliche 'character doesn't listen to protagonists and interrupts them' cliche is cliche, but it has its uses.**

 **There is little to say this time around, except for I hope the character interactions were okay in this chapter. I wasn't certain about them. I hope that I have successfully created a decent chapter for you all. Please review, and have a nice day!**


	5. Chapter Five

**The Kitsune and the Jackal continues!**

 **Reviews first, I think. Reviews are always first. Good summary, Western.**

 **Jango: Making Zlaxe say something that sounds weird requirement: Fulfilled (Makes a mark on a page.)**

 **Me: Anyways... The Caleb thing is not on purpose, Zlaxe. Just so you know.**

 **Jango: (Coughs) Liar (coughs again)**

 **Me: What about Caleb? (Smiles innocently) He's not in this story.**

 **Amber: I need to get one of those mind mallets...**

 **Me: Look forward no more, strato-abyss17, look to the present. The chapter is now.**

 **Amber: I think the 'c' and the 'g' were easy to figure out...**

 **Me: Well, Phillip, I had to make some sort of conflict, didn't I?**

 **The review responses were kind of quick today, so... Chapter start? I guess? I dunno. I guess I'm not feeling funny today. No jokes from me.**

* * *

 **The Kitsune and the Jackal Chapter 5**

" _I will not allow you to take innocent lives…_ _ **Prokopian**_ _."_

The words rang through my head as I stared at the anthropomorphic doe woman that was currently making everything grayscale and creepy, and was exuding this terrifying aura. That sword wasn't the greatest image either.

I raised my hands in surrender. "Whoa, whoa," I muttered. "We don't want to fight."

"How inconvenient." Aminity's growl "Because you have to."

"No! We don't!" I exclaimed "We don't want to do any fighting! We **haven't** done any fighting!"

"I have my doubts," Aminity replied darkly. "I can believe that there are good prokopians. I can believe that this war is a mistake, but you are **here** , and you have no reason to be. You **have** to be here to destroy, as a spy, or something else. No good prokopian who wants to live would wander so far into hostile territory. I ask again: How many have you killed?"

"Nobody!" Christy exclaimed before I could. "We're not-"

"Wrong answer." Aminity said, but she had disappeared. I instantly closed my eyes and sensed the area around me… The doe was…

"Down!" I shouted, grabbing Christy by the shoulder and throwing us both to the floor as the giant blade passed over us. We both would have been decapitated. I gripped Christy and, generating aura flames with my tail, I threw her, and by extension, myself, away with intense speed.

My foxy friend yelped as I skidded to a stop and brought her to her feet. "Christy… What is this?" I asked, staring in fear at Aminity, whose blade was still in position from where she had tried to destroy the both of us in one fell sweep.

"I don't know…" Christy replied fearfully. "I've never seen this ability before… Ever."

I stared at her. She looked terrified already. She had never seen this before, and she was so, so scared. That made me upset. I stood up, getting into a defensive stance. "Stop," I told Aminity "This does not have to be a fight."

"I disagree." she replied, suddenly behind me again, and I leaped so that she wouldn't slash off my legs, and I spun, putting a wall of aura fire in front of me that her sword struck and sent me flying into the air with the force behind her sword.

Dammit, this woman was manhandling that sword with one hand! And she wasn't there any longer!

"Let me tell you something," she growled behind me, and before I could react, her powerful foot/hoof slammed me in the back and sent me straight into the ground. I skidded to a halt, wincing before spinning and getting to my feet, looking up at Aminity as she dropped to the ground. "This is my little world," she explained. "And I can do as I wish with it."

"A… negative zone?" I asked slowly.

"Precisely." Aminity nodded. "I tell you this because you cannot fight it. Once you are within the pocket dimension, my abilities are all that matter."

And then she was behind me instantaneously. "As you will discover," she growled, attempting to slash me in half. I again ducked, and jumped away.

"I am not going to attack you!" I exclaimed.

"That makes my job easier."

"Dammit, stop that!" I yelped as I cartwheeled away from her next attack; she was diving from above and slamming her sword into the ground, sinking it down to the hilt in the gray ground. She swung the blade out from the ground, creating a trench with the blade. She held it sideways again as I shivered from seeing the dark energy visible around her, mostly around her tail.

"Please stop." Christy pleaded. Aminity looked at her, a blank look on her face.

"No," Aminity said after a few moments. I had hoped that she was at least trying to put two and two together in the manner of figuring out why Christy was with me. Instead, I was trying to think of a way out of this. The woman seemed to be trying to decide who to kill first. I don't know, but I assume the obvious answer is me.

And then I felt her hand grab my scruff instantly. **Before** her image faded from where it was before. "Oh, sh-" I started, before being rather rudely interrupted before I was picked up and slammed face first into the floor. I managed to get my chin on the ground so that I could see, but a heavy boot slammed me into the dirt again.

"Listen up." Aminity hissed. "Your reign of terror is **over**. You have **lost** ," she rose up and brought the hilt of the blade over her head, resting the point on the small of my back. "And then I will get to finding out exactly how you have enslaved that girl."

"Stop!" Christy cried out, making Aminity pause. "We're not doing any harm!"

"Perhaps you haven't. I suppose that is how the boy brought you into this mess." Aminity growled. She prepared to run me through, and I **Couldn't. Get. Up.** "Goodbye, prokopian," she said and thrust downward.

"No!" Christy exclaimed as she made her tail stretch at unfathomable speeds to slam the blade away from my back just enough for it to sink into the dirt next to me, barely grazing me. My friend sprinted up to me, and I felt her face Aminity. "If you want to hurt him, you'll have to go through me!"

She swung her tail at the doe, wrapping it around the hilt of her blade and trying to take it. Aminity's eyes widened as she fought for control of the blade. It was as if the blade was the one thing that was not affected by Aminity's power. It could be taken from her.

I, still pinned by that boot, watched as Christy's face contorted in anger and fear. "I will not let you hurt Gabriel!" she exclaimed, pouring her strength power into her tail and beginning to move the edge of the blade closer to the doe.

Aminity vanished, and I jolted to my feet quickly, looking about. Aminity was nowhere to be seen, though her blade had vanished with her. "Curious." Aminity's voice rang out through the space. "Her indoctrination is deeper than I thought. I feel that she too is a threat."

"Christy wouldn't hurt a fly!" I vouched for my friend. Christy gave a small smile at my assurance though she also looked worried. We could still easily die here.

And then I felt her again. "Christy!" I exclaimed, grabbing the kitsune and throwing ourselves to the left as the doe tried to run my friend through with a lunge. The both of us tumbled to the ground together, in each other's arms.

I rolled off of her and stood up. "Are you going to listen to me?" I asked, "At all?"

"Please, let us explain." Christy pleaded. Aminity charged instead, bringing her blade to her side and pointed forward I gritted my teeth, bolted forward, and kicked the blade away from Christy, while Aminity herself is who hit me. Not that that was a good thing; getting hit by this chick was like getting hit by a train, and I was sent flying with a yelp of pain as I tumbled into the dirt.

I looked up, seeing Aminity appear like the air had rippled and formed her, and her blade above her head. She prepared to decapitate me with her giant sword, and I really didn't feel like dying. I sat up just fast enough for the blade to pass by my back like the back of a chair and probably slicing off some of my furs. My next move was to roll back between her legs and standing behind her while her blade passed through the air where my neck was.

"Geez, lady…" I grumbled as I staggered a bit. "You really like swinging that thing around."

"No." she said, making my bend backward to avoid the next swing that could have easily cut me in half.

"Gabe, this isn't helping!" Christy exclaimed, but that only brought the attention of the doe to her, and Aminity was quite immediately attempting to cleave my friend in two from above. My aura fire flew like a giant wave and swept her away from the strike, which I barely accomplished. We had to survive. We **had** to. Raina's freedom depended on it.

Christy jumped to her feet as Aminity advanced on me again. I sent aura flames swirling around me in a sphere, knowing that the blade could not get past my flames. She struck the flames, and I felt a weight on me, like the blade was impacting the energy that I had in my body. I would have to use my flames more sparingly in this situation.

I flinched, feeling that weight increase, before I rolled away and let the fire die out. I couldn't just do that. It was difficult to even speak with the level of concentration it was taking me to keep that blade out of my body.

She swung at me again, and I caught it on the spike on my paw, which wasn't damaged at all. That being said, neither was Aminity's blade. "I don't… Want… To… Fight you." I proclaimed.

"I know." she said in reply "Because you know you cannot win."

She appeared in front of me and made an upward cleaving motion. "Coward!" she exclaimed as she swung. I quickly made an aura-fire shield and was sent flying up into the trees. interestingly enough, the trees were thick enough for the branches I was in to be stood upon, so I did so. I huffed, feeling tired all of a sudden. This was really bad.

"Just shut up and listen for a moment!" I exclaimed, before her boot met the back of my head once more, and I was sent sailing towards where she was before, where she still waited, ready for me to land straight on her sword. I couldn't change my own trajectory with my flames unless I was holding on to something else, and then it took a ton of energy, and I saw that I couldn't push the blade away. I was going to die.

If Christy hadn't snagged me out of the air and brought me around to be near her again. "Thank you," I whispered.

She had me by the hand. Her worried, scared look was enough for me to be a little angrier. Especially since Aminity was about to run Christy through. I whirled and slammed my shoulder into the flat of the blade as it rushed forward, knocking it enough to the side that it only nicked Christy's shoulder. The girl flinched and turned around, as Aminity looked on in shock. Shock because I had just saved the life of another person, specifically someone of a different species, and shock because I looked **very** angry now.

" **Do not harm Christy**!" I shouted, slamming my paw as hard as I could into her chest.

 **Clang!**

Silence. Aminity hadn't moved so much as a twitch from the strike, and my paw, which had delivered the kind of force that had lifted seven hundred pound weights, had stopped uselessly against her armor. It **hurt**. My paw felt like something had broken inside of it. I brought my paw back slowly and gripped it with my other paw, wincing.

Aminity glared at me, as if that strike was what she had been waiting for. I had been **defending** Christy. Didn't this dark doe woman see that? She hesitated for a moment, before she went to punch me right in the muzzle. I closed my eyes and ducked, kicking aside her blade and unbalancing her, before grabbing Christy and jumping away.

Keeping my eyes closed was simply allowing me to view everything around me at once. Aminity was advancing on us at a walking pace, knowing that we couldn't do anything to really combat her. However… I felt her energy start to spread, as if she was beginning to grow more serious.

Which I realized when her fist met my cheek before I could physically react, even though she was still in front of me. Now there were two… And **three**. I was picked up from behind, facing the two copies, and was smashed back first into the ground like a ragdoll. She slammed her foot into my chest, just underneath my chest spike, and pointed her sword at me. Meanwhile her, other two were advancing on Christy.

"No!" I exclaimed, "Don't hurt her!"

I tried to move, tried to get up, but it was pointless. Aminity was immobile. The doe raised her blade over her head, and I prepared for death. I kept my eyes closed. "Christy, just run!" I commanded "Get out of here! You need to-"

Before I could say 'save your sister', Christy's expression turned into fear and anger, as opposed to just fear. "Don't hurt him!" I heard her say, and suddenly Aminity's eyes widened as a really large fireball sailed straight towards me and her.

I protected myself with aura flames as Aminity instinctively stepped off of me and waved the flat of her massive blade with enough force to displace some of the fire headed for her. It seemed that she either did it on instinct or could be injured by fire.

I had reason to believe it was the latter. But I was more looking in shock at what Christy had done. All six of Christy's tails were stretched out with the elongation ability, and the tips blazed with large fireballs that swirled and hissed with fire. Water started leaking from the trees around us. She looked terrifying. Aminity stared at the girl as she growled: " **Don't you dare hurt him**."

"Christy…" I whispered, horrified. "She'll know you…"

Aminity looked utterly shocked. Her blade, still in her hand, thunked to the ground as she stopped holding it up. The disbelief evident in her eyes was keeping her in place as I contemplated moving. I didn't know how Aminity was going to react to this.

"Then you are the one that got away." the doe eventually said after a long pause.

"Step away from Gabriel!" Christy shouted. "Or I'll… I'll…"

She trailed off, knowing that she didn't want to kill Aminity. The doe was nice… There was just a miscommunication. Rather, a lack of communication. I groaned and tried to sit up after Aminity didn't move for a long time.

Only for my neck to meet her boot as she shoved me into the grey dirt again. "Stay down," she growled. I didn't think deer could even growl. I guess deer-like taikans can. She crossed her arms and looked at Christy with a cold stare. "I see." she finally said. "You ran because you wanted no part of the war, or so we thought, but instead…"

She pointed to me. "You chose the other side instead."

"You're making assumptions, lady!" Christy and I barked at the same exact time. The taikan paused at our voice.

"Seriously, can this get any more cliche?" I grumbled. "Just listen to us before you run us through. "You know, like normal people do."

Christy crossed her arms and nodded, her blue hair waving as she did. Her determined face temporarily erased the calm, warm, cute expression that usually was on her face…

My lookalike's words really were getting to my head and messing with my thoughts now.

Aminity raised a brow, and didn't let her boot off of my chest. This was unfortunate, as I was struggling to breathe from the pressure I was feeling. I found myself choking.

"Then explain." Aminity decided.

" **After** you let my b-... My best friend up" Christy argued "it's not like we can hurt you. I've heard of your ability. 'Negative', isn't it? Incredibly rare… Makes a pocket world that you have ultimate power in, and yet our real bodies are still in the real world, and the only thing that transfers between them is death."

"The stories are indeed true." Aminity admitted. "However, I am tempted to believe that you are stalling. Get to the point before your 'best friend' gets himself decapitated.

"Hey…" I complained from my spot. She glared at me and waited.

"You know who I am." Christy stated. "Well, I am here to rescue my sister. And Gabriel is helping me. I met him when he stumbled into my home outside of either country. He also ran from his war, and we have been living together for months. When I came to town, to remember why I left, I discovered what had been done with my sister."

I was so, so glad that Aminity showed understanding in her eyes. "For as much as I have been trained to detect lies…" she muttered "I don't hear one from you. You were panicked before this, and it was very easy to make assumptions."

"Gabriel could have run away when I said he could, but he wanted to help my sister." Christy continued. Aminity clearly caught the undertones of 'for me' in Christy's voice. I caught it as well. It really, truly mattered to her that I was doing this for **her**.

Aminity had the decency to look surprised and slightly apologetic.

"I trust him with my life," Christy admitted. "With everything. Because he is a good person."

"Christy…" I whispered, not certain of how to react to hearing her opinion so outspoken. I trusted her with my life as well, and she knew that. And I trusted her with everything else, because she too, was a good person.

I smiled at the girl, and she smiled back for a moment before she turned back to Aminity. "That is where we are going. To break my sister out. Yes, we are going against the government, yes, it is basically treason, but I think that you see the reason behind it, and I have a feeling you can understand it."

"So get. Off. My… Friend." Christy said, stepping forward.

Aminity did so letting me breathe. As I coughed repeatedly, Aminity warily watched the both of us. "Why the hell are you worried?" I asked, "You're still pretty much invulnerable here."

My reminder caused her to blink and straighten. "In the face of the only taikan in history to have more than two tails, and the second in history to have more than one, I experienced some fear. You are correct, however. I have nothing to fear in my own realm." she explained.

"Good. Great." I muttered as I stood shakily to my feet. "Normal conversations are good."

Both Christy and I waited for Aminity to make a decision, or something. "I suggest…" Christy growled "Letting us be on our way to save my sister from her torment."

Aminity's eyes widened slightly, and I frowned. Was there something we didn't know? I was going to ask, but Aminity gained a troubled look. "Your sister…" she murmured "You must be careful."

"How heavily guarded is she?" I asked.

"..." Aminity's troubled look was enough for me. Christy choked a bit.

"...I say to be careful because I have heard some strange and conflicting stories." Aminity admitted. "The guards that travel from the main compound out shiver in fear at her name, though they refuse to talk about why. Much like I can be… Your sister is hidden in the shadows, although not by her design."

"Stop being cryptic!" I barked, "And use regular words in conversation!"

Both girls were surprised by my outburst. "...Nobody outside the main compound and perhaps the city surrounding it knows where she is or what is being done to her or what she is doing." Aminity explained "And even then, some of them may be misinformed. Terribly misinformed."

"Trust nothing anybody says, then," Christy muttered. Her tails shortened down to their normal size and returned to moving constantly behind her.

"In this case, I believe that is advice I myself do not have to follow." Aminity murmured. "Wake up."

At her command, I saw color start to come back to the area, along with some changes to the scenery, like seeing Aminity on one knee in front of us on the path, eyes closed and coated in a dark aura. Then I felt a rushing sensation before my face was suddenly in the dirt. The pain was gone, and I didn't feel drained anymore.

I pushed myself to my feet and ran to check on Christy. The girl's tails were still within her dress aside from the first one, and I helped her up quickly with a sigh of relief. "Okay. You okay?" I asked, supporting the girl, who was on shaky legs by holding onto her elbows. She nodded slowly. The girl then hugged me out of the blue.

"Oh god, Gabriel, I thought you were going to die…" she whispered.

"Hey, we're all right." I pointed out, patting her back lightly. "It's going to be all right." I was very, very glad that I had blunted this chest spike so long ago. I probably should do the same thing with the spikes on the back of my paws, but they could still have a use.

"Please…" she pleaded "Don't do that to me again…"

I frowned. "Christy… There might not be anything we can do about that. All we can do is try."

She shuddered as I pointed that out. Promising not to die was the least keepable promise I could ever make. We both knew that much. At least we could try, but the chances of our success… So low it was astonishing. But we would try.

I looked over at Aminity, who was getting up to her feet. "If it makes you feel better…" I muttered to her "We'll probably die without your interference."

The doe winced, before shaking her head. "I should not have made that assumption. And I will not unveil your presence to the authorities. Your purpose and reasoning are sound, and frankly, noble. I can only wish you luck."

"Wait…" Christy whispered as she finally got off of me. "We could really use your help."

Aminity shook her head. "My duty is to the people of my town. And my ability has a fatal flaw, like many. I fear that I would not be of much help to either of you. I bid you farewell, Gabriel, Christy. May you succeed with flying colors."

And then, like how she had appeared, she faded into the shadows and disappeared. We stared at the spot where she had been, and just… Absorbed what we had experienced.

"...Should we move on?" Christy asked slowly.

"Why the heck is her ability called 'negative', by the way?" I asked out of the blue "If it revolves around knocking people out and putting them in a pocket dimension where the user has a lot more power? Heck, the colors don't even go negative. They go grayscale."

Christy whacked me upside the head. "Gabriel!"

"What?" I asked.

"Just… Don't question it. Somebody obviously thought it sounded neat." Christy muttered, grabbing my shoulder and steering me in the general direction of the path. "Our bags are at this tree."

So they were. We double checked the things, making sure we had everything, and without looking back, we got out of there. The dirt path was going to be repetitive once more, so I thought.

But when Christy started walking a little closer to me, almost reaching for my paw but holding herself back, I felt that things were taking an odd turn. I hoped that this wasn't going where my lookalike thought it was going.

Hah. he wished.

I think.

"Christy…" I murmured, catching her attention. "...What's going to happen when we get there in the first place? We've been kidding ourselves with our plans. If we come against someone you know, and if they're not as forgiving as Aminity was… Where do we draw the line and begin to defend ourselves?"

My question made the girl look down, extremely troubled. "I don't know, Gabriel," she whispered. "I just don't know, but we won't know no matter how much we plan, and I don't have a choice. But… If you're going to nearly die, I think I have it in me to defend you no matter what the cost is."

I nodded. "I would protect you with my life… or if necessary, someone else's." I admitted. "I don't like this feeling…"

"Neither of us do," Christy replied "But I feel the same. I would put your life over someone else's if forced to choose. What does that mean?"

I closed my eyes. "It means that it's going to hurt a lot more when one of us dies before the other," I muttered.

My pessimism was met by Christy gripping my arm with her hand. "Don't say that…" she whispered, "Please."

I turned her and looked her in the eye. "How can I not?" I asked. "I need you to tell me what I can do to convince myself otherwise. I would use my life to try and save your sister's in a heartbeat, and the fact is that I probably will."

She brushed her tail against my head for a moment, wincing as she recognized my sincerity. I sighed and rubbed her head with my paw, calming her somewhat. She straightened and fixed me with a stare. "I need you to be positive so that we **can** do this. Because if we go in knowing we will lose, then we **will** , and if we go in at least believing that we can do it… We might have a chance." she reasoned.

I gave a small smile. "That is kind of like what I was saying earlier about laughing." I realized "And you're right, but it's hard."

"It could hardly be easy." Christy laughed. She turned away from me for a moment, because she was hiding her own frown. "We'll be in danger in pretty much every way, but maybe we can do it," she rubbed at her neck with her hand.

I knocked away any passing thoughts about why she kept touching that collar. She might never tell me, and that was fine. It had to be fine. Eventually, I would have to warn her of my own flaw in my power. I waved that thought aside as well.

"I trust you." I chose to say, smiling at the girl.

"I trust you, too." Christy smiled back.

We walked on, through the forest, just… Taking in the sights, I guess. The trees were nice; they looked like the bark was composed of dark brown with white spots, and the needles of the pines were a brilliant green. Their branches were thick, as I had learned when Aminity was trying to cut me in half.

Something occurred to me. "Hey, aren't we lucky that Aminity kicked me that time instead of running me through when I was in the trees?"

Christy's eyes widened. "Oh wow. She could have done," she whispered. "And your adventure would basically be over, huh?"

"Yep," I said. "Thank goodness for dramatic instances."

Christy laughed out loud, the kind of sing-song laugh that could lift any situation. Pretty soon, I found myself laughing alongside. "Oh, how convenient!" I exclaimed. "living to fight another day through sheer luck!"

"Is this going to be every day for us?" Christy asked.

"No," I said, calming down. "Other days will just be boring walks through the forest."

Another laugh. "True," Christy replied.

I bit the inside of my cheek. I wondered if we really were going to have any more calm days before we have to fight for our lives and Christy's sister. I tasted blood and realized that I was of course in my form that had fangs. I spit out some blood quickly and hoped the bleeding would stop eventually.

"Gabriel!" Christy exclaimed as I spit out the blood.

"My habits are coalescing," I muttered "it happens when we're so used to switching forms before we suddenly stop and stick to one. I bit my cheek as if I was in my other form, but I just tore the skin apart instead with my sharper and more dangerous teeth."

"Oh…" she muttered, "Do you need to enter your other form for a while."

"Not in hostile territory," I responded, looking about. "I can't take that risk." Christy nodded in understanding and we continued to walk on while my cheek stopped bleeding. Just talking. Reiterating discussions that we have had before, or just walking.

That day passed. The night was warmer than before, but we couldn't just lay in the snow. We got the sleeping bags out this time, mine and the extra one we had acquired… Somewhere. I don't exactly recall how we got it. Chalk it up to convenience if you want.

But that night…

"If you stick me in a field of rainbows and flowers again…" I growled at my lookalike "I will take you apart molecule by molecule."

he laughed at me. "only tempting me, kid." he responded. We seemed to be on a blue couch, in an odd room. A television was there, and odd glass door looking things were blocking the way to the outside world, which consisted of a lot of dry dirt and some forest. "Like the place by the way?"

"Is it yours?" I asked.

"Eh…" he scratched his head "Its owner lets me hang out here on occasion. Or rather, he doesn't bother complaining."

"I don't need to meet any more people," I said, shaking my head.

"Unlikely." my lookalike shrugged. "Breaking reality in front of the guy must make his stressed out enough, so dragging you into his experience… Not a great idea. The bloke spends most of his time upstairs anyways, on his computer."

"...Okay?"

"I'm surprised you didn't break your paw punching Aminity as hard as you did," he changed the topic. "Can't have felt good."

I felt pain in my paw just thinking about it, which was weird because it never happened in the real world. "I'm surprised you didn't jump in," I ventured "it was sort of a dream, after all. Sort of."

he laughed. "Eh, you were going to be fine," he waved it off. "Christy saved you, you saved Christy, Aminity spared you, and honestly, that wasn't going to happen any other way unless you didn't care, and you've established plenty of times that you **did** care."

"You knew that all three of us would live." I deducted, and he nodded calmly.

"Exactly."

"But… How did Aminity know who I was?" I asked.

"She had her suspicions from the beginning." the other me told me. "But she trailed you, keeping to the shadows, which seems to be a secondary ability of the Negative magic. It's primary use leaves the user extremely vulnerable in the real world, as if someone is out of range at first and comes in, they can just kill the person using it, which shocks everyone who is still alive in the negative zone out of the dream and back into reality while the user dies."

I acknowledged his explanation with a nod, and sighed. "We're in trouble, you know," I told him. "An all-powerful version of me would be great to have in this fight."

"But what would happen, do you think, if I helped?" he asked "Or rather, if my energy got out of control when I was in there? I could hurt a lot of people, kid. It's better that I just mind my own business… And yours. If you need advice or something."

"Advice?" I asked, my brow spiking upward, "Coming from the guy who made me say 'no more rainbows' out loud in my sleep?"

My lookalike smirked. "Doesn't make me a credible source of ideas, does it?" he asked jokingly "But seriously, I'm not going to ask you to kill anybody. I would hope that you could avoid killing entirely…."

I watched him sigh. "I would help. I would love to help… But I am afraid of making a mistake. And me making a mistake isn't the kind of mistake someone would slap you on the wrist for. At the very least, my mistake could end the lives of thousands. It took a long time of planning and practicing to blast apart your ceiling without unleashing a wave of force straight through the atmosphere and punching a hole through the outer layers of this planet's atmosphere."

"Hold it!" I exclaimed "You planned to destroy my room with the freaky symbol wings in **advance**? It was **planned**!? Not cool, bud!"

He started laughing, and then I started laughing. It was almost as nice as being with Christy. The other me seemed to read my thoughts. In fact, I think he did, considering how he poked my head with a finger. "And you still can't get your mind off your girlfriend," he teased.

My eye twitched. "She is not my girlfriend!" I shouted at him, only for him to casually grab my muzzle and shot me up before I could continue.

"You're kidding yourself, kid. You like her," he told me.

"But not in **that way**." I denied. "We're different species! We should be incompatible, and anyways, we're friends! Best friends!"

"What makes you think that your two species are…" he trailed off and shook his head. "Pah… Mortals."

I raised an eyebrow.

"You lot make too many assumptions." He clarified.

Wait a second… Was he talking about the friends thing? Or the compatibility thing?

He patted my shoulder. "You can trust Christy, kid," he assured me. "She's a great person, just like you are. Take it naturally, and eventually, you won't get all warm-cheeked when I mention her."

He was talking about compatibility.

"We are not going to do that!" I barked at him, trying to contain the pure embarrassment of this conversation. That didn't even make sense! Christy was my friend, not my girlfriend!

He laughed at me. "Imagine that…" he murmured, chuckling. "The guy has the girl in the friendzone."

"What?" I asked, befuddled.

"Nothing, just a rare occurrence," he replied. "Now, I think we had best get going."

"What? Why?" I asked, but he just tapped my head a few times and everything went blue before it went black, and then it went blue and yellow.

 **Whack!**

Christy made a 'yipe!' noise turned away from me, holding her muzzle with her hands. I had bolted up from where I was sleeping, and had apparently slammed her in the face with my face. "Christy!" I exclaimed, "Are you all right?"

As I got out of the sleeping bag to go check on her, I silently vowed to punch my lookalike in the face. He set this up so that I would be doing what I was doing, bringing her up by holding her shoulders and asking if she was all right, looking into her eyes.

"What were you doing above me?" I asked, squashing my annoyance at my old friend and his useless matchmaking shenanigans.

"Waking you up." she muttered "Bad dream?"

I had to think about it for a solid fifteen seconds. "Sort of." I decided to say. "The other me comes up with some… **Interesting** topics."

"Interesting," Christy repeated in a deadpan, rubbing her muzzle with her hand. I smiled softly at her.

"I didn't do too much damage, did I?" I inquired, moving her hand away and looking at her muzzle closely. she wasn't badly injured at all. She just got whacked a bit. "You'll be fine," I told her with a smirk on my face.

She chuckled. "you're so silly." she laughed. "Go eat your breakfast."

The way my eyes lit up had her doubled over while laughing.

* * *

"This path is boring." I complained.

"You said it. it literally looks exactly the same as it did six hours ago." Christy nodded. We continued on, just walking and talking. I allowed Christy to go quiet every once in a while, which was her way of coping and not forgetting why we were traveling in the first place.

Hours later, we hadn't found the town yet. "We should have made it hours ago." Christy told me, and I frowned.

"Did we turn the wrong way at that intersection?" I asked her.

"Maybe, but it was clearly labeled to lead to town, and I checked, seeing that it wasn't tampered with at all…." she responded slowly.

"So we're going slowly." I deducted eventually. "Do you want to pick up the pace, or… Discuss our plan?"

She closed her eyes for a while, letting out a slow breath. "I think… I want to rest," she whispered.

I realized that she looked pretty tired. Really tired, in fact. I nodded. "Okay, we'll rest." I agreed, holding her shoulder and leading the sleepy kitsune over to the nearest large tree and we set our bags down before sitting against it.

"Have we been going more than you should?" I asked, "I mean, we make a lot of mileage every day, but if you need to rest more, don't let me keep us moving."

She sighed sleepily. "Not really…" she muttered. "It's just… Well, I guess I've been moving around a lot. Maybe I should rest a little more. Looks like it's catching up with me, huh?"

I frowned. "Yeah." I felt her forehead. It wasn't too bad, but it didn't feel quite right either. "You might be coming down with something, as an alternative…" I muttered, "It's not bad, but let's not make it any worse, all right?"

"Okay." Came her quiet reply.

I got out some water and handed her a bottle of the stuff, which she drank quickly and relaxed against the tree. "Gabriel?" she asked.

"Yes, Christy?"

"We don't have a plan at all, do we?" she asked quietly.

"Hey..." I muttered, sitting directly next to her and rubbing her head a bit. "Of course we have a plan."

"I mean… A **real** plan."

I flinched. "Honestly?" I said, and she nodded. "No. We don't. We tried, Christy, and no doubt we'll keep trying, but as you keep pointing out when we plan things, it's the central military base for a reason. So… No. We don't have a real plan."

Her tired gaze fell to the dirt path in front of us.

"But…" I continued, gripping her knee in a comforting manner "We're going to try. No matter what, plan or not, we're going to try. Because neither of us can leave your sister in there while we're safe and sound. We **can't** do that. We **won't**. **I** won't. Alright? We'll keep working on it, and when we get there… We'll just use what we got."

She smiled and leaned against me, making me stiffen a little bit. "Thanks, Gabe," she thanked me and closed her eyes. Five minutes later, the girl was snoring on my shoulder. Just brilliant. Now I was trapped, and today was not the best day to be trapped. I sighed as softly as I could and just put my arm around her, letting her be comfortable. being a pillow wasn't **so** bad.

I felt comfortable against… The tree. It felt nice to have something to set my back against for the first time today. It was rather warm today, and the remainder of the snow was beginning to go away. A shame, considering how beautiful snow was.

I dragged our bags over to me using my aura flames and kept them close, preventing potential theft. And then I closed my eyes again. Sleep did not come for me. Instead, I just felt everything around me. The path, the wind, the trees, Christy… My aura senses told me that her life force was just as powerful as it had ever been. I wondered why she was tired. And why I had let her fall asleep on me and trap me.

Oh, wait. I know.

I was going to punch my all powerful duplicate right in the freaking mouth.

Once I managed to fall asleep, that was. If I could. It seemed that I wasn't nearly tired enough to sleep. Typical. I was gonna beat the stuffing out of the other me for this one. There were other things we should be doing… Like saving Raina.

Why was he stalling us? Why get us attached to each other? "The more we care about each other, the more it'll hurt when one of us dies…" I whispered aloud, so quietly that Christy's ears didn't even flick in recognition of the sound.

But practically on the wind, my response came. "Pain is a part of life, and in this case, being more attached to each other is likely to actually keep you alive."

I heard it loud and clear, but Christy evidently didn't. "That makes no sense." I hissed.

"It makes perfect sense. You simply do not see it yet." came the response, and then the presence of my cheeky and rude doppelganger was gone. I growled very softly and decided to just wait. Two hours. I waited two hours, and then I started trying to passively wake the girl up.

She just snuggled deeper into my shoulder in her sleep when I scratched softly at her ears, which was **not** the plan. She needed to wake up! I tried a lot of things that should peacefully wake the girl up before I just flat out decided to slowly, steadily, escape from underneath her without letting her fall against anything. I allowed her to rest on the tree while I paced for a while. I didn't want to worry anybody, but I myself was really, really worried. My best childhood friend, with me for all of my life, was joking around and trying to push me and Christy together during a crisis, and he apparently thought it would help in the near future.

But I didn't want to play that game.

I wanted to get into that building, grab Christy's sister, and get out of there. If we were forced to kill that Malvolio bloke, we would be officially stuck in this brutal war. And I didn't want that. I wanted things to go smoothly, even though I knew they wouldn't. We were probably going to die.

"Shut up, Gabriel" I chastised myself. I was being all sorts of pessimistic today. Success would come if we were careful and quiet and good at our jobs. I had military training. Christy never ever stomped around and made a racket.

"We can do this," I assured myself, still pacing. "It's all good. We're going to be fine. Christy and I make a great team—not a couple, stupid… Whatever type of being the other Gabriel is!—and we could pull this off if we did it right. "I think we can I think we can I think we can-... Wait." I stopped myself. Saying that just felt… Weird.

I closed my eyes and focused on the life force of everything around me again. This was a calming technique. Seeing the life force flowing through something, detailed by blue energy… It was such an elemental state. It was like floating amidst the elements of everything out there. Out in space rather than in the real world. If not for gravity keeping my feet firmly planted on the ground, I might have been inclined to believe it.

I sighed and opened my eyes, covering them with an arm temporarily before I let myself see the sun out of the corner of my eye. I walked over and grabbed our bags and stuff. I put my backpack on and managed to use some roped to tie the other to it. Then, I carefully picked up my sleeping fox friend and kind of decided to keep moving like this.

"How adorable." the wind teased me.

"Shut it," I growled as softly as I could "We need to make it there as soon as possible, not play some game of yours. You've been my friend for so many years. Why are you suddenly turning against me?"

I expected my demand to be met with silence, but to my surprise… "I have always been your friend, and always will be." Came the less disguised answer. "But as your friend, I am telling you that you need to understand what you have **before** you lose it. Because if you don't…"

I looked down at Christy in my arms. The kitsune was snoring softly, her ears flicking. I felt a jolt in my chest as I watched her sleep. Her fur was soft, her tails were big and fluffy, She was about my height and I had to admit that I spent more time looking at her body than the average person might. "Then you will never recover when you **do** lose it," he continued softly "It is better to acknowledge what you have while you still have it."

It clicked. His explanation clicked in my head. He was telling me to get it together and… Not talk about it with her, exactly, but to just… Not act as if I hadn't started to feel that way. Just… be more comfortable. I choked slightly at a sudden thought. "Do you… Expect us to die?" I asked.

He was silent for a moment, and I could sense his aura signature nearby, glowing so brilliantly it was blinding. But I could not see him. It was like everything was glowing in my aura vision as he spoke. "No." he finally answered "But… It is a possibility, and a probability if you are not careful."

I nodded slowly. "You want me to be prepared," I whispered. He was still my friend. He cared about me. I suddenly smirked. "I'm still going to punch you right in your godly mouth for that dream sequence and embarrassing me in front of Christy." I threatened playfully.

"Wouldn't expect anything different." his presence faded, and Christy promptly stirred. I guess he was the reason she was tired.

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead." I teased, continuing to walk forward. The girl stirred, flicked her ears, and slowly opened her eyes, looking right into mine. She blinked for a few seconds, confused, before something resembling sheer embarrassment and horror emerged on her face, much to my amusement.

"You're… Carrying me!?" she exclaimed, before promptly tripping me up with her tail, landing on her feet, and hoisting me above her by the ankles with her single exposed tail. "No! You did **not** just do that!"

I laughed. "Figured I'd make some ground," I explained "And hey, things at least look different now. Besides, I saw your face before it really clicked. So peaceful and content…"

My teasing got Christy to quickly yank me upright with her tail, wrapping her tail around my waist now. "Makes me wonder how you would like being carried around like a sack of potatoes," she threatened.

"Jeez, fox girl," I muttered humorously, "And I went to the trouble of carrying you like an actual person."

Christy dropped me onto my feet, her tail spinning me as it pulled against my belt.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I huffed and dropped him to the floor, deciding to spin him somewhat as punishment. What did the guy think he was doing? He's silly, I get that, but this was a little much for him. Our gold object thing clattered off of his belt and nearly ran over my foot. I retracted my foot before it could be smacked by the gold weight and picked it up with my tail.

As I walked over and picked the boy up using my hands, I set the thing back on his belt with my tail. "You get so silly sometimes," I muttered. Secretly, I was also amused, but he didn't have to know that. All he had to know was that I felt that being carried was just **weird**. And the way he was doing it reminded me of those images of newlyweds, the man carrying the woman. The comparison was reason enough to be weirded out.

I quickly untied my bag from the back of his so he wasn't carrying it and slipped it on. "Come on, dog boy." I teased "We're probably almost there."

We were. One hour later and the forest opened up into plains. And on the plains sat a rather large town. The buildings were bigger, the streets were visibly more confusing, and it was closer to a city. Not quite a city, but closer.

"What's this city called?" Gabriel asked me. I shrugged and pulled him forward to get into the place. We would probably spend the night here. Thus, we had to play the strategy game a bit.

"The name doesn't matter much, does it?" I asked, "As long as we can get where we need to go, the town names are practically meaningless."

"True," he agreed, catching up to me finally and joining me as we walked. He was spinning the gold thing on the tip of his paw like a ball casually as he walked alongside me, occasionally hitting the ellipsoid to make it spin faster.

"You might want to put that away before we go in," I noted. "Heads up, guards approaching."

In one swift motion, my best friend put the gold item back on his belt, hidden in the folds of his dragging trench coat. He put a polite smile on his face rather than a jovial and amused face from before. He forced himself to relax, his powerful muscles holding no tension. He smoothed down his chest fur a bit, something that I got distracted by.

I couldn't afford to be distracted. I flipped my blue hair back and neatened it up just slightly, discreetly made certain that five of my tails were hidden in the dress, changed my expression to one more along the lines of innocence, widening my eyes slightly, and making certain that my dress was relatively clean.

The twin guards walked up to us. They wore matching leather outfits, and were clearly brothers. The twins were some sort of cat, I think. Triangular ears, white and black faces, a good amount of muscle, and their fur was spotted. The white and black cat taikans looked us up and down.

"Welcome to Cardinal Town" they greeted us. "May we ask your names?"

Gabriel obviously had to try really, really hard not to make a joke about them being twins. I stepped forward and spoke up. "This is Gabriel here." I introduced my friend "And I'm Kayla."

My lie was convincing enough. That was good, considering I had made it up on the spot. "We were simply passing through on our way to Central City."

They nodded. "Then you will have to pay a visit to the place where everyone checks in," he asserted "This way."

We gave each other short, worried looks before walking along. We had to lose these blokes somehow and not set off alarms in the process.

Plans, plans, time to make a plan. I quickly wrapped my arm around his shoulder, which made him stiffen for a moment, before I discreetly brushed my tail against his head, which was less inconspicuous how we were standing.

" _What are you-Ohhhh…"_ He interrupted himself in his head. " _Okay… It's too crowded to take them and wipe their memories."_

I nodded slightly. " _Yeah… We need a working plan."_ I thought back, only to see his eyes widen and hear him stifle a quiet yelp. " _Right… We've never done direct communication with my mind power like this before."_

" _Christy,_ _ **please**_ _."_ he pleaded " _No heart attacks today."_

" _No heart attacks."_ I agreed " _These guys probably won't be as nice as Aminity was. And she tried to kill us anyways."_

" _The lynxes are going to have to go down."_ Gabriel deducted, gesturing to the two that had not turned around to look at us yet. " _There are a lot of people out and about…"_

" _I don't like that either…"_ I agreed " _I think we're not going to get to sleep here tonight. We might not even be able to buy anything."_

" _Want to nick a few cloaks or something?"_ Gabriel thought at me, smiling slightly.

I raised my brow at him. " _We're going to look really stupid."_

" _Perfect"_ Gabriel's cheeky reply came back, and I removed my tail from the back of his head. Time to playact. I saw a nearby vendor selling these intricate and neat looking quilts, and I purposely stuck a smile on my face and tugged on Gabriel's sleeve, leading him in a different direction.

"Hey, where are you two going?" one of the twins demanded. I ignored them and practically pranced up to the taikan at the counter. He looked surprised to see me, probably because I had adopted a totally fake 'kid in the candy store' face while Gabriel had taken the appearance of the boyfriend who hated shopping and was being dragged along.

He looked back at the twin guards. "She does this all the time," he assured them with an edge of exhaustion to his voice, which probably reduced our chances of being stopped.

I started jabbering on about the designs I was seeing, and how useful they might be in future crafts. It wasn't hard to fake, because I loved creating things. The quilts and available fabrics were really nice. I started negotiating for the price of the longer, uncut pieces I was seeing, of different colors. If I got to keep the things, I would definitely make a few things out of them. Along the other things I got, some of them included the dark, less noticeable coloring that was prevalent in all of those movies where people try to sneak around in.

He had been bewildered at first, but the beaver taikan started to realize that I knew what I was talking about, and enjoyed a lengthy conversation with me regarding the values of the dyes and inks used in the fabrics and how they are tougher when put together in layers and such. He then discovered that I did have the money to buy a whole lot of things. I was glad that I had sold that old ribbon… It had given me a ton of money. Gold was highly valued in this country.

I bundled up some of that stuff (An excellent pillow in the future, and stuffed it in my pack. I tossed Gabriel one of the large black sheets and I held onto the dark brown. "Thank you!" I exclaimed cheerily and Gabriel nodded to the guards who had just kind of been standing there.

"You are very welcome, young lady. It was a pleasure speaking with you," he responded, stepping into the back of his shop to start gathering more materials to put on display, as I had taken a lot of it.

"Our packs are getting really heavy over time, Kayla," Gabriel told me, remembering my made-up name. "Your shopping sprees are getting a little ridiculous."

"Oh, hush," I said gleefully "I really did have fun."

Gabriel scored points with the guards when all three of them shared a sympathetic glance. "It is nice to walk around." Gabriel ventured as we started up again. "What kind of sights might we want to see right off the bat?

One of the twins had that kind of attitude of not getting into conversation with people who he was escorting or guarding. His brother, however, had less of an issue with that. "Most of the things people travel to see include the fountains at each of the cardinal directions of the city. The entire city is laid out a lot like a compass with its roads and fountains. Eight fountains along the exterior in each of the cardinal directions, as well as the primary intercardinal directions." he explained. "Each of them is decorated very impressively."

"They sound nice," I commented, not seeing a reasonable way to detour that entire way. We needed something closer.

"Yes, it's true." the man continued. "The town is very old, and one of the old tales that circulates around is that it indeed used to be a giant compass structure with the fountains, built long before the entire thing was converted into a town, built on the open ground."

"Do you believe that?" Gabriel asked the man, who nodded.

"I believe it because of that." he pointed. We were nearing an intersection, and the dirt road converted into an odd solid blue material. Gabriel raised a brow and moved to inspect it. "These roads move straight from the center fountain to the outer directions, and these intricate material compass lines that we can't actually damage in any permanent way."

"Meaning it repairs itself?" Gabriel asked, inspecting the metal surface. Upon the man giving a nod, he raised a brow. He didn't say anything, but I remembered his cloak, which was the same blue metal. I realized that it must be the same stuff.

"That's pretty cool." Gabriel eventually said.

"Hey, kid." the other guy suddenly said in a gruff voice. "Your coat. Is it made of the same stuff."

I was close enough to him that I could flick my tail like one normally would on occasion, brushing his head. He tried to figure out whether he should be honest or not. He looked at me, and I nodded. He stood up straight.

"Yes, it is," he proclaimed. "Cobalt and a rare metal known as Chlorophyte in an alloy. Easily damaged, yet with self-regenerative properties. Not so useful for weapons or armor, but excellent for small items that one wants to preserve that might normally be easily damaged. My coat is an example."

His speech drew the guards into silence. I cheered him on silently, waiting for him to continue. Gabriel shrugged. "This coat was a gift to me, a family heirloom, if you will. I don't know where to find Chlorophyte, but I'm going to assume that it's particularly rare, and I have my doubts that it can be extracted from this metal combination in any way," he continued, debunking any potential hopes of it being useful in the war with some clever wording.

"May I?" the guard who had been mostly reserved for a long time asked, approaching. Gabriel held out his arm, and the man felt the sleeve. The more talkative one chuckles.

"My brother always enjoyed anything to do with metal," he laughed, earning a glare from his twin. This was a good moment to remind people that people like this had personalities and lives. Everyone was so alive, and they had preferences, ideals, opinions.

This was why war was terrible. People forget that in the middle of battle. Who has this person lost? Who would lose them if they die?

"Quiet." the more stern brother ordered, breaking away from inspecting Gabriel's trench coat material. Trying to maintain the authoritative stance, but we had gotten to him, and had been kind to him and showed that we had similar interests to him, as Gabriel had pulled a lot of knowledge out of his thick skull.

I chuckled, and then Gabriel and the more talkative guard (hey, they looked exactly the same in clothing and everything else, and I couldn't hope to identify which was which if they were quiet, so I'm going to keep on describing them like that) joined in as we laughed just enough for the stern guard to blush slightly behind the fur.

But what I liked was the fact that there was in fact a central fountain. Potential detour, I think. In fact, I decided to suggest that. "That central fountain sounds nice." I ventured "Think we could head that way?"

Gabriel smiled. He got it. One brother shrugged, happy enough with the idea. Upon seeing his brother's frown, he said: "It is only a few blocks from the check in center, brother." he reasoned.

In the end, we walked in that direction. As we passed the building in which we were supposed to check in, I did see one of those nasty identifiers above the door. We walked straight past it and up to the most beautiful fountain I have ever seen.

It looked more like someone had stuck a tiny yet incredibly diverse island amidst all of the water, and the island was that blue metal, shining in the sun. The entire structure was so complex that it looked like something from a painting, and water spewed, sprayed, or trickled from various places in the entire area.

We walked right to the edge of it and put our hands on the raised edge that was about chest-height. The guards were behind us, so we didn't make too much of a fuss, but I brought my tail around and dipped it in the water for a moment. Gabriel understood. And I waited for a while, until one of the guards got impatient.

"May we go to the center now?" the gruff voice of the stern twin sounded behind me, and it was showtime. Gabriel turned, and smiled at the two.

"Yeah, sure-" he started to say cheerfully, but then the fountain promptly erupted with water, courtesy of six tails worth of water manipulation power. The water towered above everything, spraying everybody. The guards closed their eyes, covered their faces as water rushed towards them. Gabriel grabbed me and instantly backflipped straight into the fountain, with my in tow.

The fountain was incredibly deep. So deep that we couldn't properly see the bottom without it being distorted. The water rushed into the structure through cavernous openings underneath the water, and I quickly remembered to make us an air bubble with more water manipulation.

Gabriel gasped for breath and closed his eyes. "Everyone's in a panic up there," he confirmed "but not that much water actually got out. The guards… Those lynxes are working to help calm down the people near the statue. They're talking, I think. They've probably forgotten about us."

"They'll notice later…" I muttered, groaning in annoyance. "The city nearest to the main compound is likely to be on alert for us. Or at least, people who look like us." I forced the water out of our black fabrics that we held, and the exterior of the pack, which thankfully had **some** degree of waterproofing to it. I made sure it was like that because playing with water tended to make things… Well… Wet.

"Getting to work?" he held up the black fabric.

"One hundred percent." I agreed, getting out some stuff for some **very** makeshift threading to turn these things into cloaks that would hide our faces and just about everything else that we needed to hide.

We spent nearly half an hour, mostly because Gabriel needed me to basically teach him how to make a cloak, while he kept updating me on how stuff was happening upstairs. "Those two guards gave up on looking for us. The one guy was shrugging in a rather careless manner." Gabriel informed me. "We need a way to get out of this fountain without being seen, though, preferably without losing more water. Granted, a bunch of water manipulators walked up and fixed it, and it looked like they were arguing…"

I chuckled. "I think that we've made them think that a water manipulator or multiple of them played a prank on the public." I explained. And we played the tourist game with those guards, so they probably aren't surprised that we ran. And they probably won't bother looking for us. They might not even report us."

"Not taking a chance with that 'might'" Gabriel muttered. I nodded in confirmation. The tiny flame I had on the tip of one of my tails that was lightening up things was small enough not to be properly seen through the water. Gabriel finished the item and swept it over himself, covering his head and face, and used the little knot on it to tie it together around his chest spike. "How do I look?" he asked with a jovial tone and a spread of his arms, his voice emanating from the shadow or his hood.

"like a goofball," I announced with a smile, bringing the tiny flame closer to see his face. "But hidden.

"Well…" Gabriel responded slowly, before taking mine and draping to over my shoulders himself, tying the different knots in. "In conjunction with your dress, that's atrocious. At least jeans look good with cloaks. And it hides your face, which is a big minus for me, and a big plus everywhere else."

I shrugged. "halts the recognition process in its tracks." I responded. "Let's get out of here. Discreetly."

We looked around the bottom of the place, and for the twentieth time, I brought more air down from the surface in a hopefully discreet manner to replenish our oxygen supply. We climbed the underwater portion of the island thing in the center, me maintaining our little bubble. While I extinguished my flame, Gabriel looked into the place where the water was flowing in.

"Idea…" he said "The top of the mountain portion of this thing has a hole just as big as this. And we can fly, though it takes a ton of energy."

Energy on his part. I frowned, but I didn't have another solution. We would have to be super discreet about this, but it might be less noticeable than climbing out of the water with a bunch of people watching it. Granted, we would be flaming blue and flying out of the mountain island of a fountain, like a chunk of molten rock from a volcano…

I brought the boy with me through the tunnel and we started climbing up the conveniently shaped surface of the walls of the upwards tunnel. I didn't see any mechanism for moving the water up whatsoever, but there were these neat blue crystals I hadn't seen before. They gave off this weird aura, or so Gabriel told me.

We climbed up near the top, where the water would normally be floating out in a beautiful way, trickling down the silver and blue metal surfaces in a river to a waterfall and then into the water. "Not yet…" Gabriel muttered, wrapping his strong arm under my armpits and enveloping us in aura fire. I wrapped my tail around him, strong enough to hold the both of us.

"No…" he muttered "They aren't turning away, and the water getting past your bubble is spraying out kind of weirdly. We might not have all day."

I worked to amend the odd spray that was occurring as water rushed around us, buying us more time. Gabriel waited for another minute, but then he whispered "Now!" and I felt myself get yanked upwards, and Gabriel too was yanked by my tail, wrapped around him. We shot out of the thing and Gabriel quickly steered us away from the center and over a building, before panting and dropping us down on the next side of one of the building, straight in front of one poor vendor, who nearly had a heart attack as instead of walking up to his normal stand, we had dropped straight out of the sky in front of him.

Gabriel promptly collapsed. "No more flying," he pleaded weakly as I hauled him to his feet, making sure his hood was down like mine was. We both looked over at the vendor.

"Sorry about that." I apologized. With Gabe exhaustedly putting his weight on my shoulder, we walked off. "Food buying time…" I whispered to the guy "And we're going to have to go with more travel-friendly food this time."

"I think… I can live with that," he panted. "Did you see that poor bloke's face?"

"Yeah… At least we didn't just walk away like…" I trailed off.

"Like assholes? We kind of did. We just… Diminished it a bit by saying sorry."

"True," I admitted. "Alright, you. Recover quickly so it isn't super weird when we're talking to the guy we're buying stuff from."

"Yes ma'am…" he muttered, straightening with a pained huff. I noted to myself that asking the kid to get us in the air was not going to be a working strategy when we got to the point where we were in a lot more danger. Flying was **out** of the question.

"You are just the heaviest anyways." I muttered, rubbing my shoulder. He scowled at me under his hood.

"C-... Kayla," he remembered to use my fake name, "You do realize that I've got **metal** in my body, right? Of course, I'm going to be heavy."

"Neither of us know how **much** metal you have in you." I refuted, walking along "And in my defense, I don't often use my arms to carry things. So much easier to use my far stronger, longer, and versatile tail-" I cut myself off from saying 'tails', as there were people around.

"Which wasn't your argument in the first place" Gabe reminded me "I went from heavy to you being weaker physically in the span of twenty seconds."

"Fine, fine, you win," I grumbled, seeing him smirk at me. "Drop the smile, dog boy. I'll get you back." I playfully threatened.

"Dream on, fox girl," he replied. "Let's get some food. For now and for later. I'm starved. And I think it's best that we sleep **out** of town."

"True." I agreed. My stomach loudly agreed with the jackal as well. I smirked. "It seems we're all in agreement." I joked.

We traveled a ways until we reached an actual restaurant. I don't think that our restaurants are like the ones that prokopians make They're often outside, just like the storefronts. Gabriel quietly confirmed it as we put back the hoods of the makeshift cloaks. The nice squirrel taikan waiter offered us menus.

"So familiar, yet so different," Gabe noted. I gazed almost blankly at my menu, diving back into remembering everything about my sister. Gabriel, thankfully, seemed to notice this and quieted down. giving me a reassuring smile as he waited patiently.

I met his eyes, my own subdued gaze meeting his red irises. They were filled with a calm assurance that I was so happy to see. The sweet smile on his face… And I haven't seen a more calming shade of red like that of his irises since I last saw my sister painting.

That thought brought a smile to my face. A bigger, warmer smile. I really hadn't made the connection before. Or… Maybe I had, and that was why it was so easy to trust him. His beast form's red eyes were like the red that Raina used in her paintings.

Yes, that **has** to be why I kept staring into his eyes.

My dear sister… She didn't have anybody right now. I had Gabriel… Those guards each had their brother, Aminity had her town… Even the shopkeeper that I knew so well knew somebody called 'Glynda' in the other country… For some reason.

I closed my eyes for a while. I felt a few tears streak down my cheek. I was on my way to save my sister. I was coming. **We** were coming. I was crying because my sister was in pain, and so I was horrified and terrified and sad, and yet I was also crying because Gabriel was willing to throw his life on the line for my sister, and so I was also astonished and grateful and happy. Happy because he was here with me, and was being so good to me.

I felt his paw rest on the side of my arm, squeezing slightly. "Thanks, Gabe." I thanked him quietly.

I knew that he understood, yet instead of directly responding, he said: "Want to share one of these large plates?" he asked, showing me a menu page with a bunch of dinners on very large plates, meant for sharing.

I found myself breaking from my temporary depression in an instant. I still knew that my sister needed to be saved, but that depression had turned into determination, which quickly turned to embarrassment as my focus changed. I blushed heavily. "You realize that those dishes are for couples, right?" I asked, leaning back. He blinked, turning the menu and looking at it.

"So it is," he shrugged. "Is that an issue?"

While he put it back down in front of me, I stiffened. "Kind of!" I exclaimed, "That has **all** of the implications, Gabe?"

He raised a brow. "Why should we care what people we might never meet again think about us?" he asked "And, you know, we always did like the same stuff, and you tend to choose what we eat. you're darn good at it too."

He sounded so **casual**. I blinked, and then reluctantly nodded. He obviously wasn't trying to make **that** implication. "Erm…" I looked at the menu for a while. I quickly chose a dinner just as our waitress approached again. She took our orders and walked away, smiling.

And we were eating rather soon after. Gabriel commented on how useful magic must be if our natural abilities could be so easily specified. Then he frowned and noted that the power one had tended to limit their options in what they would be most successful at in life. Both points were correct, of course.

He then looked uncomfortable about his meal when he seemed to remember something, but waved my question off. "Another time," he said, glancing about before finishing his half of the dish in a quicker manner than before.

I enjoyed my dinner, we paid, and left. It was relatively quiet compared to most of our interactions. We put our hoods on and slipped through the darkening streets and everything. Slipping past people was pretty easy, actually. None of them were really **expecting** to see somebody sneaking around.

We made it out of the main gates without triggering anything at all. That in itself was surprising, so we walked into the dark without a word, and made certain time and time again that we weren't being followed. The Aminity incident had been one too many for us.

So eventually, Gabriel stopped about a mile from the town and we traveled off the path a bit, already reaching up and undoing the straps of our packs. Bleary eyed, we just kind of fell over in exhaustion with our packs on our backs, using them as makeshift pillows in unison.

If Gabriel was unhappy about getting whipped with one of my backpack straps, he didn't say anything. "Night, Christy," he muttered to me tiredly "Get some sleep."

"No, we don't," I muttered, smelling the air. "Sleeping bags first."

"Oh… **Fine**."

He grumbled as he emitted aura fire and lit up the area enough to drag our stuff out of the packs and flop it down, putting the openings under the packs, which would still be pillows, and we were situated in thirty seconds. "Alright," he muttered, "Sleep."

"Sleep." I agreed as I closed my eyes while in my sleeping bag.

"Time to punch my lookalike right in his smug face." he grumbled quietly.

I blinked my eyes open for just a moment, turning to look at him in what was now very dark."What?" I asked.

I got a snore in response. I blinked, shrugged mentally, and sank into my own dreams. I hadn't realized just how exhausted I was. Nighty night, Gabriel. I needed my own rest.

* * *

 **Okay! I wonder how that chapter went in your eyes.**

 **Aminity was not meant to be a true battle in that sense. she couldn't be harmed with her ability. At all. Not with them trapped in that sleep-dimention thing. But once you startle someone into listening, and they happen to be nice, kind normally, they probably would let you go if you were on a darn rescue mission.**

 **And the town. Take a wild guess as to why it's called Cardinal town. Oh wait, I think the chapter answered that one. Oh well.**

 **I think this chapter was a success. I know it seems that I'm doing a lot of fast-forwarding, but I just can't fill it will filler all the time. I don't have enough material for that. Instead, I focused on advancing the connection between Christy and Gabriel.**

 **And I think I've done a half decent job with that one.**

 **At any rate, please review, tell me what you thought, and have a pleasant day!**


	6. Chapter Six

**Hello, everyone. Once again, welcome to The Kitsune and the Jackal. Warning: More prevalent expletive language in this chapter. Just a bit more, really.**

 **Jango: Hyper, in no way do they need to know and in no way do they probably care that there is more cursing in this chapter.**

 **Me: Shut up, Jango. Anyways, now is a good time to get to reviews. Here we go.**

 **Well, West, you're right about that. I will indeed show what I want to be seen, whether people know what they are looking at yet... Or not.**

 **Jango: Ooh, did you guys feel that evil chill in the air? I think you lot missed something~**

 **Me: Shut UP, Jango.**

 **Anyways, as for What Lies Beyond...**

 **Jango: (Shoves him away and reads it.) Gah... Broken... English...**

 **Me: SHUT UP JANGO!**

 ***coughs* sorry, What Lies Beyond, for Jango's rude words. As for the rest of your review... If you mean that the lookalike and Caleb are similar characters, then I can see that, I suppose. I honestly don't remember if the shadow force bit was intentional, but...**

 **Jango: Oh, give me the darn reviews. you're going too slow, and Amber's waiting for me. Do you WANT me to be crushed by eevee power? Don't answer that. Right. Strato-abyss. Relation to stantler is entirely unintentional. Descriptions? When in first person POV, it is critical that you take into account that the person whose eyes you are looking through might not be paying attention to every detail about a person. And Phillip Hrbindinger. We fixed that error.**

 **Me: Thanks for the catch, Phillip.**

 **Jango: That's all for reviews- wait what!? That's it?**

 **Me: Just be happy we got four. The Kitsune and the Jackal is not as well known as other stories, even compared to some of my stories. I would love for it to get more attention. However, that might be slow going.**

 **Jango: Shut up, Hyper. The rest of you, read on. (Bolts out)**

 **Me: People in a rush... Often the most irritable.**

* * *

 **Chapter Six: Tension**

Ugh… I felt terrible. Stiff from sleeping in a poor position. You know those awful days when you would rather do **anything** other than get out of bed? Today was one of those days. I muttered a few expletives as I dragged my arms away from my body, out of the sleeping bag, letting them cool off in the morning air.

"Your language gets more colorful by the day." A voice told me, as my best friend sat up, still in his sleeping bag, and stretching. The sunlight reflected off of the metal spike on his chest, dragging my attention to it. In my half asleep stupor, there I was, staring at a guy's chest.

"Tired?" He asked, getting out of the bag and holding it up. "Hopefully not too tired to fix my sleeping bag again." He muttered, his much sharper paw spikes now glinting in the morning sun. I muttered and brought a tail out of my bag reluctantly and wrapped the bag that Gabe held with my tail and making my tail glow green, causing any internal damage to seal up.

"There. Happy?"

"Happy." Gabriel replied, and he promptly pulled me out of my sleeping bag with his aura flames, despite my protests and threats to burn him alive or drown him."You're an entirely different person in the morning." He muttered, setting me down and packing up his stuff and my stuff alike with his flames.

"Hmmph." I turned away from him with my arms crossed. That lasted until his paw met my shoulder.

"Wake up sleepyhead." He told me, shaking me a bit.

"Hey-ey-ey-ey…" I complained as I was shaken back and forth. "Not nice!"

"After last time, do you really want me carrying you?" He asked. I jolted and rubbed my eyes.

"No thanks," I muttered to him and watched him chuckle. I smiled and started packing away some of my things as well, pausing with the small frying pan, pretending to contemplate whacking him with it before shrugging and putting it in my pack. "Ow!" I yelped as a movement caused a yanking feeling on my chest. The connector piece on my dress had tangled with my fur in a few places, and I started struggling with it.

"Plan for the next few days. Get to the city where the main compound is" Gabriel started listing off stuff we needed to do in a way that started to wake me up as I tried to untangle my fur from this stupid part of my dress. The pain of pulling at the metal object woke me quickly enough even as my back complained. Gabriel caught me clutching at my back, and sighed. "I could always…" he trailed off.

"I got this…" I proclaimed.

 **Pop!**

I went red-faced. Gabriel turned my way. "Do you need help-Gah!"

He whipped away and rubbed his eyes with his paws as I hurriedly redid the connector piece and sealed the dress back up. "Can't…" Gabriel muttered. He trailed off, but the 'unsee' was implied. "Is it fixed?" Gabriel asked desperately.

"Yeah," I told him, and he turned to see my very red face yet perfectly fitting dress. "That's the second time you've seen-"

"Stop."

"You should get used to it," I told him, and then my cheeks flared red. "That's not what I meant!"

Now the awkwardness was simply spreading outwards in a wave of intangible, invisible energy. "What do you mean 'I should 'get used to it'!?" Gabriel asked me, red scorching the previously present blue of his muzzle. I shook my head violently, trying to express all the 'no' **ever**.

"Dammit, that image isn't going away…" Gabriel muttered as he bashed his head against a tree three times.

"...Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yes? No? I think my bones have metal in them too or something, 'cause this doesn't hurt much. No, because I feel terrible. I can't just forget an image like that. That's two images seared into my brain."

"Two?" I asked, and then blushed at that memory too. "Seriously! Stop making this awkward for me!" I pleaded.

"How!?" Gabriel waves his arms in the air in exasperation. I opened my mouth but had no answer. He sighed, bashed his face into a tree again, and started walking down the path. "We have talked about literally all we possibly can talk about at this point that we are comfortable sharing." He continued reasonably. "It's not possible to have any discussion that doesn't lead to… What we think of each other."

I winced, remembering the instances where we had tried. " _New material, Christy. Fast."_ I ordered my brain, but my brain was apparently feeling mutinous. No alternatives came to me for an hour, so we just walked in an awkward silence as we tried to forget that morning ever happened.

And the day passed slowly, without incident. Well, without life threatening incident. Gabriel and I both kept shooting glances at each other. It was driving us insane. Our addled minds tried to forget the morning and just move on, but we had trouble doing even that.

It made me wonder just how I felt about him. I was honestly starting to feel something completely foreign to me, and it scared me. A lot. I shook my head. Maybe I needed to slam my head into a tree a few times.

"So." Gabriel finally tried to break the tension five hours later. "It's about lunchtime."

So it was. And I had nearly **missed** it. "Wow, yeah," I replied, dropping my pack with a grunt and started picking out my tools. Cooking, my beloved activity, how I missed you. Such a beautiful distraction, finally, from this morning's events, and I made full use of it with the materials I had available. The smell of cooked food was always welcome.

"Look at that." Gabriel pointed over the edge of the cliff. I looked over as I waited for the water to boil, seeing a beautiful view. Much unlike the generally flat path we had managed to travel for so long, between Cardinal town and the main city, there was a terrain filled with ravines and a mountain. We would be skirting around the mountain, but circling this area here would take two extra days. Despite the fact that we sometimes had fun, and bantered and talked, I still wanted to get this job done as soon as possible.

" _I'm coming, Raina."_ I thought somberly " _I just… Need to spend more time with Gabriel. Because one or both of us probably aren't going to make it."_

Below us were trees and a river that had been flowing through the ravine and out. It was a pretty sight, and nice to look directly down at. I rolled onto my back and faced the sky. My ears flicked as I listened for the water to start boiling and steaming. Clouds passed by, and the sun shone like it always did. I smiled for a moment, thinking that no matter what happened down here, if we died, if everyone died, if not a single person survived this war, that sun would continue to rise and fall for the rest of time.

Gabriel looked conflicted when I looked over at them. Looking between myself and the spot where he had set himself down. He was sitting in the dirt, leaning against a small tree and looking at the view. He didn't look comfortable at all, and I had managed to find myself the only grassy area in this place.

They were mere glances he was giving, and it looked like he wasn't trying to. However, I felt something was wrong with the image. I couldn't identify it, but I couldn't just let him sit there like that.

"Hey," I called to him, bringing his attention to me. I scooted myself to the side, still on the small grass patch. I then patted the spot next to me. "You look really uncomfortable."

"Uh…" Gabriel flinched. "I don't think-"

"Get over here, silly." I rolled my eyes. "As if this day could get any more awkward."

Gabriel looked surprised but eventually did come and lay next to me. We were both on our backs, looking up, resting. Peacefully silent, except for the water bubbling in the background as it heated up from the fire I had built, discreetly lighting it with my fire manipulation magic.

"If clouds are made of water, can you drag them down with your water manipulation magic?" Gabriel asked me out of the blue.

"Uh… One tail doesn't have nearly enough range to do that. Maybe if I used all six. I could try…" I trailed off and looked around to make certain we were completely alone in this place. Then I focused on the nearest cloud and focused on controlling the water. All six of my tails glowed underneath my dress, and I tried to reach the cloud.

I knew that my range would be boosted, but I also knew that my power weakened over distance. All manipulation magic weakened over distance. Common knowledge, that. But six tails was enough for me to make the water ripple on a lake from a good distance away.

And clouds seemed much easier to control than most water, probably because it was light enough to float. I found that the cloud had stopped moving, and I started it spiraling and making different shapes. Then, I started bringing it down. I kept it away from my fire and managed to make the water into a fog around the area.

"That could be useful," Gabriel noted as I let the water go and watched it dissipate.

"Yeah." I agreed. "Good idea, Gabe."

"Thanks."

The water still wasn't hot enough. So we laid there and tried not to look uncomfortable. I've sat next to him before plenty of times. Why on earth was this so difficult now? What was going on? I felt so, so confused. Maybe as confused as I had been after I had found my new home and wondered what I was supposed to do. What was I supposed to do?

Was it so odd that I wanted Gabriel to be closer to me more often than he was?

It was **torturing** me, that question. We were different species, first off, and not even like normal taikans, who have elements of one random species each, Gabriel wasn't even a taikan. And his form that could be described as something like a unique taikan, which it was not… Well, I couldn't think of much wrong with it. But the species gap was just making this ridiculous.

I scolded myself over and over again. I wasn't one of those warmongers. Why did it make a difference what species he was? I could still be his friend.

But something deep down told me that his species did matter, and something was making me feel extremely odd about it. It had nothing to do with the war, that much was certain. I didn't feel wrong because I was friends with him.

But I **trusted** him. I could ask him about this, right? I could bring it up, mention it, and maybe have a discussion about it?

But I **couldn't**. I didn't want to talk about that. I trusted him. I trust Gabriel. And… That scared me somewhat. My hand found its way to the band on my neck, running across one of the runes etched into it. I trusted Gabriel. How much did I trust him? I trusted him with my life. My finger ran across the band for a moment before I dropped my arm. But… Was it enough to trust him with my life? Did that mean I would trust him with this?

Maybe if he never asked about it, I would never have to find out.

"Hey…" Gabriel muttered to me quietly. "I wanted to ask…"

I stiffened slightly, and he noticed. But I waved for him to go on even as he began his apology.

"I mean, you have a sister, so… Did someone take care of you both?" He asked.

Memories started flashing through my vision, reminding me of a lot of horrible things that I flinched upon remembering. My lips tightened, and I wondered why Gabriel was asking.

"I'm… Asking because as I told you, I don't remember having any parents or anything other than the other me, and he wasn't exactly a parental figure for the most part. Just a friend." Gabriel reminded me. "But… I never learned about your family."

"That's because…" I choked, tears coming from my eyes. Gabriel quickly backpedaled.

"Okay, Christy. It's okay. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to." He assured me, sitting up. He looked like he was going to get up and give me some space. However, I sat up quickly and grabbed his shoulders, before pulling him into a hug.

He hadn't expected that in any way, but I didn't let go. "I-I just… I try not to think of that." I told him after I was done sobbing into his shoulder. "It's something I can't control, can't do anything about… It's not like my sister, who I think about constantly because I honestly don't know what's happened to her."

"You don't have to talk about if you don't want to." He promised me gently, putting his paw up to my chin so that he could look me in the eye. "I won't pry into it. I promise."

"...You deserve to know." I decided quickly. "Just forgetting about it makes it hurt so much when I wind up remembering it."

"Okay. Take your time, alright?" He told me. I nodded. And I had to open my mouth and close it a few times before I could really begin.

"I can't say all of it." I decided to tell him. There was a subdued feeling inside of me. As kind as he was, as trustworthy as he was, no being alive could be trustworthy enough right now. Maybe I would trust Gabriel that much someday, but that trust, no matter who to, could be unfounded. I was afraid to mention it. "But… I can say that my father was ordered to do something unspeakable by the government… And he was a coward, and he did it. And… And my mother got sick as an… Unforeseen result of it. She died after six years of pain and frailness. Her condition might be why my younger sister… Never wound up with an innate magic power, instead having a bladed tail and horn."

Gabriel's eye had fixed on mine with a certain intensity. He looked angry, but I could just tell that his anger was not directed at me, so I continued. "And once that job was done and my mother got her odd sickness as a result… The people in charge didn't see any reason to keep my father around, so despite the fact that he had done what they ordered of him, they sent him off to war and nobody has heard of him since."

"So your mother cared for you while she could." Gabriel nodded. He smiled and pulled me into a hug again. "That's what matters, right?"

"...Yes." I agreed.

"What was she like?"

I smiled up at him. He always liked seeing me smile, which could have been why he was so kind to me, so generous. And his question made me happier about him than I have felt in a long time. I focused on his eyes, as he was above me, considering I was leaning into him.

"She was a wolf taikan, for one." I started. "Her magic seemed to be really different from a lot of people. Instead of a magic power, she had an intense inner magic capability to enchant things. Her entire body was packed with raw magic."

Gabriel's eyes widened, and I could see him thinking. He must have understood **something** because his grip on me tightened. I was glad that he had blunted that chest spike.

"She had mixed colors of light purple and white…" I continued "In a normal way, not my half and half color thing. She also had some black fur, particularly from her nose to the tops of her eyes and up, and from her elbows and knees down to her hands and feet. And then her hair was purple. Always styled perfectly. She was lucky, actually, considering how long she lasted…" I trailed off. I didn't want to say anymore.

"She sounds beautiful." Gabriel murmured.

"She was. In far more ways than one." I agreed, leaning into him.

Gabriel muttered something so quietly that I barely picked up the word 'beautiful', followed closely by 'you'. I felt my cheeks heating **again**. I slowly pulled away from the hug. "You have no idea how much it means to me that you're willing to listen," I told him honestly.

He broke the atmosphere off by grinning. "I think the water's boiling."

My eyes widened at what I **thought** was supposed to be a clever statement linking to my extremely heated cheeks, which he **had** to have felt when we were embracing each other, and it might even have been, but I then realized that the water behind me was indeed boiling a lot.

"Right." I blushed harder, and as he laughed, I went back to cooking. I made sure to whack him on the head with my tail on my way over to my cooking pot as I began to make some actual food. And yet I was smiling. Gabriel was so, so good to me. I just… I had to make a decision if I could trust him with the most important secret I have. I know I can't hold it off forever. At some point, it'll start to hurt.

But for now, lunch was served.

"How exactly do you do it?" Gabriel asked as he stuffed his face with food.

"I don't let you touch the cooking tools or the food while it's cooking." I told him bluntly, but in a joking tone and a smirk on my face."

"Hey! I'm not that bad!"

I shook my head. "You're like those people, you know? That kill every plant they ever touch, but with you, it's cooking materials and whatever food is in the process of cooking."

"Christy!"

"Instantly. Inedible."

"Un. Believable." Gabriel mocked my fullstop-laced finishing sentence. I whacked him with my tail again, and watched him start to eat again, unable to turn away from my cooking for long enough to make an actual argument.

I gave a rather affectionate roll of the eyes and went back to eating my own food. I then paused with the bite halfway to my mouth. Did I really just mentally describe that as affectionate?

Gabriel didn't notice what I was doing, or rather, failing to do. Before he could finish his food and look up, I stuffed the bite in my mouth and started chewing. Stop thinking, Christy. Stop thinking, Christy.

I hated my mind and it's continual questioning about why Gabriel's species was important to me right now.

I finished my lunch quickly, and seeing that Gabriel wanted to move on, or rather, he wanted to get going because my sister was being hurt somewhere across this mountain. I smiled at him as I stood up. With my tails, I put away my cooking materials away without really looking and bringing my pack up to my back while I looked at Gabriel.

"Show off." He grinned even as his flames brought his pack up to him.

"Hypocrite," I grinned back. Then… I just had to give him another hug. "I don't think I could have been luckier to meet you," I told him honestly, feeling him stiffen with surprise.

"Christy…" he started, and paused. "You saved my life, you've been my friend for months. We've lived together for ages. We trust each other and talk with each other normally. Why're you getting all huggy lately?"

I looked up to see his teasing smile, and I gave a genuine smile back. "I don't quite understand it myself," I answered. He ruffled the hair on my head and pushed me away gently.

"Let's be off." He said, and held his paw out to me as he turned halfway around. I smiled, grabbed it with my hand, and we were off into the carved earth region of Taika. Up and down ravines, absolutely beautiful views that I never got to appreciate as a little kid… I had to get past this mountain to really escape.

I'm frankly astonished that I survived back then. That the wilderness itself didn't kill me. But I suppose the years before my mother died I learned a lot more about the world than any six year old should be able to comprehend…

But against all odds, I survived those times and escaped, and made my own home outside of both countries. These mountains are why nobody actually wound up running me down in the first place, really. The cold didn't bother me too much, even at that age. Even if I shivered at night, I still could go places that others could not, and so I escaped by crossing the mountain and finding just enough food.

I used my water manipulation to carve marks into the snow as we passed on the winding routes of the ridges and hills. If we ever somehow got turned around, we wouldn't be for long. At the same time, I made certain that the path wasn't too easy to understand, as in, my signs were very vague in meaning.

But, beautiful as the place was, it was going by rather quickly. Once we reached the city, we would have to start making a real plan. A plan that would mean life or death… And death was honestly more likely. A sobering thought, but if I gave up and accepted it, even for a moment, if I accepted death, then failure was absolutely going to happen.

We continued walking. We found that the views were always changing, always impressive. I found myself walking close to Gabriel, staying as close as I could to him for as long as I could manage. How fortunate was I? I was fortunate enough to have someone to care for right now. I was fortunate enough to have a surviving family member. I was fortunate enough to be alive to this day.

Perhaps, just perhaps, I was fortunate enough to bring my sister home with my current family still intact. Some say luck can only get you so far, and they are absolutely correct, but how far will my luck go? Was I right to hope that everything would be just fine until the moment it did not?

Leaning against Gabriel's shoulder as we walked, I realized that I did think it was right.

"Careful," Gabriel told me as I leaned into him. "My arms swing when I walk, obviously, and spikes are things that exist."

His warning got me to pull away to notice that his paw spike had indeed gotten close to scratching my thigh multiple times as we walked. "Right," I said, brushing my hair back and continuing on. But then, he had my far shoulder with his paw and I was leaning against him again, this time without the potential risk.

I had a feeling neither of us really grasped what this coziness meant for the both of us. I tried, I really did, but I wasn't coming up with much more than 'we're alone on a hiking trip and keeping close' in my mind. It was hard to think of anything other than that.

My heart constricted the next day when we emerged on a ridge and looked down on a city of sorts. My home city, where everything went wrong. "I don't know if we moved too quickly or made great time," Gabriel commented. "We should go down there and figure this out."

"Wait…" I whispered, causing the jackal to stiffen. I sat down on the ridge, looking down. "Can we talk about the plan up here?" I pleaded.

His expression turned from surprise to understanding. "Sure thing, Christy." He said, sitting next to me.

I had made my decision. "I need to tell you everything, no matter how painful. The people I knew, who we might have to fight, everything." I quietly admitted, rubbing the band on my neck. "...Everything."

"Christy…" he whispered, "Are you sure about this?"

"I am now… I wasn't when I said anything about it earlier." I whispered back, looking around. There were people coming up the trail, the first people we had seen in days. "Hang on."

We busied ourselves looking like we were talking and hanging out, with Gabriel holding me close with his paw on my shoulder, the prime example of a couple resting and enjoying the view. The group of people, I think they were a caravan, traders and salesmen and women. They walked past us with wagons filled with goods, heading out to make the trek through the lands, likely to go to cardinal town. They didn't even pass a second glance at us. Just walked on by.

"They left us alone easily." I muttered, "Can't say I'm complaining."

"Considering the 'act natural' method we used, I can't say it wouldn't have worked." Gabriel pointed out.

I looked at him. "Since when is acting like a couple 'acting natural'?" I asked, cheeks heating a bit. He looked away, uncomfortable, and I realized that I still had to tell him everything. "Listen…" I told him softly. "I know this is nice, sitting together and hanging out… But I can't sit on this any longer."

He set his paw on my arm comfortingly, smiling. "As soon as you're ready." He said. "Just tell me if you want me to give you more space than I have recently."

I smiled at his self-consciousness. Becoming aware that he had been holding me close to him in what might seem possessive, but wasn't actually so. He was making sure that if I wanted space, I would get it. "Honestly…" I whispered. "I need the comfort."

"Okay." he replied, staying close.

I sighed. "It's hard to know where to begin… I should start with the people who are my friends. There's… Armalita and her sister, Sandra. There're a few others, but those two I remember best. But there was also a girl named… Kayterayn, I think. She knew Armalita, but I knew next to nothing about her. But her eyes kept switching colors. I don't know who's side she would take."

"Armalita… She is a good friend, but… She will always do her duty, and will be impartial to her personal feeling. I know she will be there because she has to take care of her sister. She will be our enemy, and possibly our most deadly enemy." I paused. "I won't kill her. I would never, but she will be ordered to capture me if I am discovered. And she will be ordered to outright kill you. Her magic is called manticore magic, based on some mythical creature in stories that shot spines from its tail. She can summon needles from her tail, either outright launching them or pulling them out to use them. We have to assume that her accuracy will be better than yours is with arrows."

Gabriel didn't wisecrack in any way, so I knew that he knew how serious this was. "Sandra is the reason that they can't send Armalita off to war. Armalita is the only one who can control Sandra because Sandra spends all her time at the nearest bar to the compound. Her tail has a very odd magic that makes whatever touches it, including herself, heavily drunk all the time."

 **That** got Gabriel to raise an eyebrow.

"They can't sent Sandra off to war because she'll wind up getting her own team drunk on the battlefield, but they can't outright kill her and Armalita is the only one who can control her. We probably won't meet Sandra unless we want to ask her some questions. Which we might want to do, because she would probably actually know more about the layout of the main compound as it is today than we do. Talking to her might be… Risky."

"And then… Raina." I continued grimly. "She will be… Different. No person can withstand years of torture without being changed. We have to be prepared for the fact that I will barely know her from what she used to be. She will probably be disoriented, and we will have to get her out of that building on our own."

"Allies?" Gabriel asked.

"Maybe Sandra, but we can't take her into battle. Just maybe talk to her first." I told him, and continued. "From what I remember, they keep building on the main compound, adding to it, and everything in it, room by room will likely have slightly different designs. The building will be a hodgepodge of history, and I haven't been nearly through any of it. We don't know what cover there is room by room. We don't know what has changed, stayed the same, we don't even know how much bigger it is since I left because even though I can **see** it" I pointed at the large stone and iron forged exterior building visible, which was about as large as Gabriel described his main compound, but instead of being close to circular, it outlined the main city by about half, creating a crescent moon image. The wooden and stone buildings with the crescent moon of the iron and stone building. The city itself made a large circle, kind of like Cardinal city, although that one was built on a massive compass.

"Even though I can see the compound, I don't remember how big it was when I left. I didn't exactly look at the view when I ran." I continued. "Ultimately, we don't know what we're doing, and we need more information."

"Okay..." Gabriel said slowly "So… We find Sandra and try to ask about stuff."

I buried my face in my palms. "Our biggest ally here is a drunk that we can't possibly get everything accurately from." I groaned.

"Hey. We'll find a way." Gabriel assured me.

"...Thank you." I nodded, a determined look crossing my face. Then it collapsed. "I feel… We're in danger here. The moment we start going down this ridge, either of us could be killed at any moment during battle if we have to fight. So… I trust you. Beyond anything else, I trust **you** , and you deserve to know more things than I told you. I need to get everything off my chest here."

I saw him nod silently, and seeing my face, he had his paw around my shoulder again, keeping me close to him, warming me up and making me feel comfortable. I rested in the fur on his shoulder for a moment, collecting my thoughts.

"The day I ran, my sister and I had come up with the idea together. Neither of us wanted to be stuck here, so… We packed our stuff with critical supplied, and I kept some cooking equipment and Raina… She took her painting supplies in her pack. Then, we tried to sneak away. It was before either of us were scheduled to get military training for the first time. They wanted to start me early on it. We were about seven, actually… It's hard to remember perfectly. We snuck until we heard sirens as everybody realized that their super important tool was missing, and became very, very angry. We had to run when they managed to find us somehow… We were so **close** , Gabriel. So close to the exit, but Raina realized we weren't going to make it, and she…"

I choked. "She turned around. Started to fight them with her claws, horn, tail, everything. Trying to keep them from me. Screamed at me to go, to leave her there, because she wasn't the one they wanted. They could only **kill** her, but they could do so much worse to me. 'Christy, just go! Just leave me and go! They can't get you if I keep them here and struggle!' She was screaming at me. Over and over again, she shouted similar things until I just ran in fear at the look in her eyes. I couldn't even **describe** that look, but it scared me so badly…"

"...That's all that matters about that time, but you already knew most of that story. What you need to know involves **this**." I tapped the band on my neck. "See… I didn't give very much detail about that event before we entered the mountainous area. I need to start from the beginning, as my mother told it."

Gabriel listened intently while I started speaking. "My mother was born without a direct magic power in her tail, but her magic potential was enormous. So enormous that they, the people in charge, ordered one of these placed on her." I tapped the band again. "They got fifty people on the job, and it cost them almost all of their magic potential altogether, though they recovered. The people in charge thought she must have some incredible power to go along with it, but to their disappointment… She had the magic potential, and that was all."

"Eventually… These bands start to hurt the owner if they stay on them. Unless the owner gives them to someone they trust… The bands continue to hurt them." I started to explain. "Because once the band is made for someone, their force of will is contained in it. The ultimate magic bind."

Gabriel stiffened.

"My mother eventually had to give hers away before she could not bear the pain any longer." I continued, crying. "She gave it to her mate because she trusted him. The two looked like they were going to wind up happy anyhow… My father was a leader in the political aspect of everything… Mother's life did not change too much. Father avoided giving direct orders for a long time. He would let her live a lot of her life without being forced to do a lot of things, although it was inevitable that at some point, orders would be given. No way around it. Sometimes the orders were accidental, maybe over distance via a magic communication device, but my mother would still be forced to obey."

"He treated her very well, all things considered, but then… I was born. The instant the people in charge knew that I had six tails, the instantly ordered that I have one of these bands placed on me, but they did not have enough people that they could use to do it. So… They came to my father, the only one with complete control over my mother, and told him to make her forge my band herself. He refused, at first, but they threatened him. And my father… He was a coward. He feared for himself too much. Mother told me once that she had truly thought for a moment that he would refuse and that they could live a happier life, but… He didn't. He gave the order, and my mother could do nothing but forge the band herself and put it on me. See… Those bands have to be put on a newborn, at most twelve weeks after birth, to work at all."

"I never knew what my mother thought of my father. She always spoke in carefully reserved and impartial tones when she talked about him. I never knew if she hated him. I might even say that before and after the deciding moment, she had halfway expected something like this to happen." I helplessly shrugged. "That's the life of someone like me."

"Eventually, my band will start hurting me, and I will have to give it to someone I trust." I looked away.

Gabriel suddenly released me and scrambled back. "You said… You said you trust me!" He exclaimed, breathing hard, a terrified expression on his face. "Christy, I will never, ever, steal your freedom from you!"

I sadly looked at him. "We'll have to cross that bridge when we get there," I told him sadly.

His back was against a nearby tree. The guy looked ready to hyperventilate or something. He was absolutely terrified of the thought that I might someday hand him this band around my neck and told him that I trusted him. He was so, so scared of the thought of having me under his control, as someone who would obey every one of his commands if he gave them.

And I knew, right there, that there was no person on the entire damn **planet** I would trust more than Gabriel. He might be the only person on the planet who wouldn't give a single thought towards the possibility of having someone helpless under his thumb. Not even for a moment. He was so, so scared now. And I knew as I watched him in that moment that he would have to be the one I gave this thing to.

"Gabriel... Please. Let's talk about this later, okay?" I pleaded. "I still have things I want to get out."

My begging tone seemed to scare him even further, but he took many deep breaths and moved to join me again, letting me pull him next to me and against me again. "Look," I said. "I don't have a choice in that case, but please. Let us try to find my sister first. It won't matter if the both of us die anyways… I'll have a few years before I have to make a decision like that. Right now, my sister is what matters."

He nodded rapidly. "F-forgive me, Christy. Please." He pleaded weakly. "I just… I just can't comprehend that…"

I smiled at him and put my hand on his cheek. "That's all right. Gabriel, you need to trust me as much as I trust you right now."

"Not at all?" He half-quipped half-spoke with dead seriousness. I winced. I gripped his shoulders.

"No." I corrected him. "Considering how you reacted, there isn't anyone else on the planet I would trust more for the rest of my life. I don't see myself meeting someone as kind as you, as generous, as caring. You care too much for your own good even. I would **never** trust anyone more."

He just stared at me, uncomprehending.

"...My mother then got sick because she used enough magic to tire out fifty people. She got sick from using up nearly all of her magic, and it started to kill her. Nobody could fix it… My mother didn't get well and truly sick until I was four, but she was still tired and in pain all of the time. But when I asked… She told me that she had been the one to ask my father for another child, not the other way around."

"She was the one who asked? Even in such pain?" Gabriel asked.

"According to her." I replied "And my mother never lied to me, as far as I knew. But… My sister wound up being only ten months younger than me. And maybe because my mother had no magic left in her at all… That might be why Raina had no magical powers in any way. Literally, she does not even have latent magic in her body. She just has that unique form. Mother did joke, yes, joke, that she was glad my sister's horn and tail were underdeveloped and blunt when she was born, only to grow and sharpen quickly. If that hadn't happened, I might have lost my mother before I was a year old."

Gabriel flinched.

"But… That's all I needed to say." I stopped talking. I could give all the details of my childhood, which were rather happy despite the looming threat and knowledge that I would be tossed into a war I wanted no part of. "I mean, I have my mother to thank for the fact that I even know the meaning of peace at all."

"And… Your father?"

It was my turn to flinch. "Three years after my sister was born, they realized they had no reason to keep him around, so they betrayed him, did exactly what they threatened him with to make him force my mother to make that band around my neck," I told Gabriel.

"They sent him to war." Gabriel understood.

"And I never saw him again. Not that I'm sure I want to." I nodded, leaning forward a bit, my spine bent forwards. "I honestly, truly think that my mother wound up forgiving him for what he did, for being a coward. My mother was the kindest person you might ever meet." I smiled weakly. "She'd like you."

Gabriel pulled me into a tight hug as I couldn't stop the tears any longer. "It's okay." He whispered softly, even though I knew that he knew it was a lie. He said it anyways. "It's okay…"

"She really, really would like you…"

* * *

Five hours. That is how long we stayed up there. Three of them I spent crying. Two of them were spent in silence. Now…

"We need to sleep," Gabriel noted, nodding at the beautiful sunset that we were witnessing. "We have a long, hard day ahead of us, maybe even multiple without sleep."

"Okay," I said.

He led me away from the edge and set his sleeping bag down. I started unpacking my stuff to cook, but Gabriel stopped me with one paw. "Not tonight." He said, pulling out some food he had somehow gotten that did not need cooking. "This stuff is very healthy and should provide us with a lot of energy for tomorrow, but we need to get right into it tomorrow, and tonight, you need sleep. Your eyes are already closing."

"...Okay."

I almost grabbed my sleeping bag from my pack, but Gabriel was looking at me worriedly. "Gabriel?" I asked.

"You're going to have nightmares…" Gabriel predicted ominously. I blinked tiredly. Yes, I probably was. The last time we had this conversation, I stopped having nightmares before Gabriel was right by me.

Oh…

"I can't just let you go to sleep on your own, Christy. Not only do I not want you having nightmares… I also don't want you to be in bad shape tomorrow morning. We literally need to be the best we physically can be tomorrow." He told me, laying his sleeping bag out. "I don't think it'll rain."

I was too tired to argue. So tired, in fact, that it didn't occur to me to be utterly embarrassed by the thought of this happening again. I did smile at him, letting him help me down so I didn't just fall over, and that night we slept nicely until morning. That was when Gabriel was awoken by a common thief that he quickly chased off before anything got out of hand.

"Glad I keep my hand on my pack." He grumbled as he helped me up. I felt much better today. I had told Gabriel everything I kept near me, and I felt that it was the right thing to do. I was okay. I was going to be okay. "Little dip thought he was so good he could nick this thing." Gabriel held up the golden switch thing "Right off my belt. I sensed him coming and woke up, but waited until he was near to spook him."

"Okay," I said, stretching.

"Your tails are hanging out of your dress," Gabriel told me. I fixed them and whipped my head around madly, trying to see if anybody had seen, but nobody seemed to have. I sighed and sat down.

"I wonder why you still carry that thing around," I muttered.

"I don't know…" Gabriel admitted. "I just feel as though it's important." He said, looking at it. His fingers ghosted over the switch, but he did to press it. "I feel as though we **need** it, but I can't figure out for what."

"Whatever…" I muttered as he clipped the thing back into his belt. "Let's get down there. We're going to find Sandra."

We got our stuff together, and we walked down the path for two hours to get to the city below. "Does the city have an actual name?" Gabriel asked.

"I don't know, but considering Cardinal City, I'm going to guess 'Crescent City'." I guessed. We had a lot of people crossing paths with us now, as we were by the main gate, so I wasn't surprised to hear a man beside us say: "Right you are, miss!" Before walking out while we walked in.

"Did he tip his hat to you?" Gabriel asked, looking back. His face had 'somebody's in old times' written all over it. I managed to laugh for the first time in several hours.

"Oh my god." I got out. "You go nuts 'cause some other guy tipped his cap at me."

"That is **not** why-"

"Shaddap, ya jackal." I cut him off, smiling. He gave me a mock hurt look and then patted me on the shoulder and started walking again.

Five minutes of silence.

"So." Gabriel started again as we walked. "Where are we going?"

"Near the center of the crescent. The thickest part." I replied. "That bar will be within three blocks of it. So we're going to be in close quarters with the most dangerous place you've ever been."

"Fun times."

More walking. More walking. "Boring, boring walking," I muttered. "Walking in a silent forest with nothing interesting around was more interesting."

"You said it," Gabriel replied. He rubbed his ears. "It's so **noisy**."

"Used to... " I trailed off, not wanting to accidentally **reveal** Gabriel's identity. Worst. Undercover operation. Ever.

"Yeah." Gabriel understood, rubbing his ears. "It's **not** good here. That bar's probably going to be worse."

"Well, sucks to be you, because Sandra's going to recognize me if **I** go in there, so you're taking the hit," I told him, smirking at him. He groaned and pulled his paw down his muzzle. I smiled at him, and he made a grunting noise at me before he forged ahead.

Twenty minutes later, we could see the buildings that my sister was in somewhere. I stared at it. It filled my vision. I was so close… So, so close… Just one more step. Just one more step… One more step…

"Christy!"

Gabriel grabbed my arm. I jolted and looked at him, startled. "What!? What is it?" I asked, panicked.

"You tried to walk right by the bar." He told me, pointing up at the sign.I looked at it blankly. "You were walking straight at that building like you were hypnotized or some nonsense." He continued. "Try not to think of your sister until we're inside the building. Now, you go find a safe spot for yourself and our packs, I'll go in there, find Sandra, and ask the questions we were talking about."

I nodded about three times. Once per second. "Yeah. Yeah. You do that." I said, stepping back, and looking around. I saw a bench. I walked over to it and sat down. Giving Gabriel a sign that I was going to be okay, I watched him whirl, his coat swirling and floating in the air as it went along with him. I loved it when he did that.

I then watched him clumsily bash his shoulder into the door and I rolled my eyes. The guy needed to watch where he was going. He whirled and gave the doorframe an amazingly accusatory look and checked his side for that gold thing.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I gripped at my side while glaring at the doorframe, accidentally smacking the gold object on my belt and hearing it click as the switch was flipped. I turned to Christy and gave her a smile, watching her eyes roll, and I walked on in.

Inside the bar, there were a **ton** of people. Every single person was drinking like it was the end of the damn world. Every single person was laughing, jeering, and had large bottles of booze in their hands. It was a madhouse. Destroyed tables and everything everywhere. Pretty much every character in this room was a large burly man. There were some smaller guys, but they still looked strong.

There were all sorts of taikans in the room. Frog guys, bird guys (with wings on their backs, and yet they have arms covered in feathers as well. The flyers. I saw bows on their back between their wings. My smug smirk at seeing the ugly looking weapons (to me at least. My bow is **far** superior.) disappeared as my entrance attracted some attention.

Aware of bar protocols, despite not ever having a drink in my entire life, I strode confidently through the group of people. I didn't falter when I walked forward. And because I showed no hesitation, they allowed me to pass instead of cornering me because I was smaller.

I approached the counter and saw the girl passing drinks out. She was also tough looking, and quite tall. She was a bear taikan, even. As I had pretty much expected, her clothing was questionable, yet it was far more covering than I imagined.

I leaned against the center and looked her in the eye. "I'm looking for a girl named Sandra," I said evenly.

"Hmph. Then you're every guy who's come in here for their first time." She growled out a response. She pointed the way over to a horde of big burly guys. "She's in that mess over there. Kicks their asses every day."

My eyes widened a little bit, just a little. What kind of powerhouse did she need to be to take these guys down? I couldn't see through the horde of large men. "I need her to answer a few extremely important questions." I told the woman.

"You don't have a chance with that group surrounding her. You might have to wait until night or something. She never leaves this place anyways." The bear taikan informed me.

"If I knew that, I would have come here last bloody night," I growled in response. "Alright. I can't leave until I talk to her. Is she gonna be surrounded by those assholes all day?"

"Until the fight starts." The bartender shrugged, scrubbing at her table with a grimy cloth. "One always starts when one of the guys winds up being a sore loser and bats her around a bit, followed closely by them getting their lights knocked out."

"Fantastic…" I grumbled. "How long until it gets ugly?"

"Any second now."

I thanked my lucky stars that said luck was still up and kicking. My timing was amazing. I heard a roar of anger as a lizard dude stood up with the table over his head, smashing it down on someone I couldn't see, hearing a female yelp at the same time.

"Hang on, that sounded like she was in pain!" I said, drawing a bit more unwanted attention to myself. Thankfully, that attention went away when the fight really started.

"She's fine."

"What?" I asked before I saw the lizard guy get kicked clear up and over the crowd and into the wall, where the shirtless man fell down onto the counter. While he got up, the rest of the guys leaped in into this big dog pile. Lots of shouting and drunken wrestling as people were kicked or punched away or something. I ducked a raccoon guy as casually as I could. "Can I get some water or something? Nothing alcoholic." I asked.

She put a hand on her hip. "What kind of guy comes into the most famous bar out there and asks for nothing alcoholic?" She asked with a raised brow.

"The guy who doesn't want to be here and just has to talk to a person with hopefully valuable information." I grumbled as quietly as I could before she handed me some water. Thankful that she clearly had not spiked it and thankful that the bear had some form of non-alcoholic liquid at the very least, I drank it down while I waited for a clear visual on the apparently super tough girl.

"I wish you luck, skinny boy." The bear leaned on the counter next to me. "That girl's not going to be saying much comprehensible stuff unless she's ranting."

"I can work with ranting." I decided and asked for a refill, wondering how much this was going to cost me. "As long as it's relevant. How much does she drink?"

"She empties the reserves I get every day." The bear replied casually. "three-quarters of the alcohol on the planet goes down that girl's mouth."

"Damn." I muttered, kind of impressed. "Why does she need to do that if her tail makes people drunk including herself?"

"Guess she just likes alcohol." She shrugged.

"That's got to be bad for business."

"Nothing costs anything here anymore." She muttered. "The country's leaders just started funding it one day because they couldn't afford to close it down and cause Sandra to start bankrupting every bar out there. I swear she'd go to Prokopios without hesitating if she couldn't get her alcohol fix here."

"At least it works."

"Aye."

A leopard man sailed past me and the bear woman stopped his crash with one massive arm, and he slumped onto the bar side beside me. "Thanks, Mother Bear…" he muttered before passing out.

"They call you mother bear?" I asked conversationally.

"Yep." Mother bear said, pouring a glass of some alcoholic drink and then dumping some honey in it and stirring with a spoon before chugging the stuff down. I prodded the unconscious man for a moment and turned to look at the fight again. The flailing limbs had ceased and people started to walk away from the fight drunkenly.

As they cleared out, I strode forward. I had to see this girl for myself. I stopped in shock abruptly. There on the ground, giggling and hiccuping, was a girl that wasn't much bigger than Christy was. Smaller, actually. **This** was the girl kicking everyone's arses?

Her muscles practically looked underdeveloped. She was slim, with large assets (of course. My life is apparently simply minded.) and her clothing was, well, nearly nonexistent. The bra was oddly shaped, a metal ring at her neck, with a loose band around her neck that held her bra up. Then her bra curved around her assets, creating an open circle of sorts in front, and then connected underneath and around the back with more metal rings. The remainder of her undergarments were a separate piece, the same green and black, and thankfully, **thankfully** , it covered all of her privates, also connected to metal rings that held it together.

Her fur was brown for the most part, almost orange, with a much lighter version of that color along her front and across most of her chin. Her bright amber eyes seemed quite unfocused. And finally, she had gold rings about an inch wide but not thick, pierced into her right ears. She threw back her darker orange hair and sat up from the ground with a drunken grin on her face.

"Hihi!" She exclaimed, nearly grabbing me by the shoulders immediately. I leaped away immediately, unwilling to have her touch me. She was obviously very dangerous. "Aww… Where you goin'?"

I composed myself, straightening. "I need to ask you some questions." I told her. I had to tread carefully.

"Oh?" She asked, taking a step towards me and swaying. "Whaddya-" **Crash**. She fell straight over onto the pile of broken parts of tables, nails included.

" _Oof…"_ I thought at the sight. "Well, I was going to ask you about your sister."

There was a stirring in the room at that, but nobody seemed to take action about it. Sandra brought her head from the pile. "Big sis?" She asked me.

"Yep. Your big sis. I need to know how she's doing." I lied. Sandra stood up and skipped up to me, looking me in the eyes. She was shorter than I was, and her big eyes looked up at me in an adorable way that I would have been fooled by had I not been previously informed.

"I'll tell you." She poked me in the chest. ""If you do something for me."

I stilled. "Depends on the thing." I said.

"He's so dead." One of the guys, a taikan whose animal aspect I could not properly identify, said. Sandra went and picked up a table, with one hand, no less, and set it in between herself and I. She leaned against it so that her spine was horizontal, set her elbow on the table, and gave me a drunken smirk.

She wanted an arm wrestle? Okay. I walked slowly up and adopted a similar position, as we didn't have chairs. I held up my paw and set it in her palm, meeting her eyes with a stern look. I didn't know what was going to happen from here. I was very strong. I could have lifted that table like that. The table looked lightweight enough. In this form, I could probably toss somebody like she did.

But something about her drunken smile and look scared me. Like there was something underneath that. Something dangerous, which was ridiculous, because this girl was literally drunk all her life. I raised an eyebrow as I wondered for just a moment how her mother handled that before she was physically born.

"Back on track…" I muttered. "How are we going to go about this?"

Mother Bear came up. "I think this is a special occasion, not one of the messes these blokes come up with." She said, and brought her hand up in a said signal. I sensed it with my aura senses, but I was unsure how Sandra saw it without looking.

The bear taikan brought her hand down, and both of us applied pressure. We were evenly matched to start with, but I knew that neither of us were putting our honest effort into it yet.

Harder and harder we pushed with our arms. I growled as I moved her arm a quarter of an inch to my left. She giggled and moved it right back without seeming to try. I kept pushing until I was nearly at my limit, and I started to push her arm down.

"She's playing with you, kid." A moose guy told me. I flinched. It really looked like she was. She wasn't breaking a damn sweat right now.

Somebody tossed her a closed bottle of some drink with no label. I had to guess, and I guessed that it was pure alcohol. She popped off the touch seal with her free thumb and began **chugging** it right in front of me, finishing it in ten seconds. Then, She slammed the glass bottle on the table so hard that the glass got a hairline fracture in it, and I saw her eyes glint, and I tried to force her arm down as much as I could.

 **WHAM!**

I screamed out in pain and shock as the girl brought my arm around easily, and bashed it into the table, and then through the table and downward. The scream? Because she just dislocated my damn shoulder! I hissed and clutched at my arm and shoulder, trying not to cry out again. Christy might come in tails literally blazing.

"Sandra, let go of the dear." Mother Bear suggested. She giggled and let me go as I staggered backward. The woman started to come up to me, but I stood and took a hold of my shoulder with my usable hand, and just **yanked** the damn thing back into position.

"Dude." a snake guy said. Seeing a snake taikan was weird because he still had arms and legs and muscles and such, but his snake tail came out the back and his head was snakelike. "Did that guy just reset his shoulder on his own?"

"I like this kid." One of the burliest men in the room, an owl taikan, said.

"Okay…" I ground out. "This is really, really important Sandra. I need to talk to you about everything you know about how and where your sister lives. What she tells you, everything."

"Okay!" Sandra exclaimed agreeably.

"What's she so coherent about?" One of the guys in the back asked, confused.

"Dunno." Another said.

"Oh!" Sandra exclaimed. "He just smells kinda familiar."

They looked at me. I shrugged. Inwardly, I was terrified. Could Sandra **recognize** Christy's smell from years and years ago? If so, was she a threat to our hidden nature? Was there even anything I could do about that?

"Okay… First question." I started, and began my interrogation. Talking to her was hard. Asking her to repeat things was useless, so I listened as closely as possible and paid attention to her rampant slurred speeches regarding the totally unrelated fun she's had at the bar. I was getting a **lot** out of her. She told me that there were 'things and stuff', as she said, that would cause somebody to 'have a bad time'. Meaning traps. She couldn't get close to giving me a layout of the place, but there were trapped areas where the alarm would be set off if anybody without some form of what would be their equivalent of a key or something. Some magic signal thing or whatnot.

Basically, through her cheerful tones and everything, she told me that we had to be a lot more careful with our entrance plan. I sighed and stood up once I couldn't get anything else from the drunk. "Thanks." I told her.

"Ooh, one more thing!" She exclaimed suddenly. "Big sis works right inside the gate, so be sure to say hi for me!"

Well, damn. That's not good. Needle sharpshooter war supporter right inside the gate, and she's not going to recognize me and she will probably recognize Christy. "...I'll be sure to say 'hi' for you." I promised kindly. Sandra was a weird girl, that was for certain. She had an odd sort of coherency for someone who was super drunk for her entire life.

Then she darted forward as I turned and nabbed my gold item. "Oooh…" she whispered, nuzzling the gold. I winced as everyone around us exploded into talk about it. Lie. Like. The. Dog. That. You. Are. Gabriel. I winced first, and faced everyone even as they started forward.

"Stop." I commanded in the strongest voice I could muster. Stall for time. "There is a very good reason I am carrying this gold around and an equally good reason why it is vital that none of you take it from me." I claimed.

They did stop and wait. I had to improvise. "I was instructed to bring this item to the leaders." I lied. "I needed to understand the layout of the building, because if I go into that building and go the wrong direction, they might assume I intend something else. I think we all know how quickly they would act."

Turns out I am really good at improvising. They nodded and backed down with uncertainty in their eyes, but they backed down. I looked back at Sandra, who was playing with the gold ellipsoid, before her hand hit the switch.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I looked up from my hands, which I was fiddling with, crossing them over one another, as I sometimes did when I was bored and just took the time to notice the fact that one hand had blue fur and the other hand had yellow fur.

I looked at the bar, wondering how different Sandra was from when I had last known her. Gabriel should have what he needed soon. I had a sneaking suspicions (you know why) that Gabriel was good at getting people to talk without being threatening.

But what I saw wasn't nearly as good. Blue, black and white. Slim yet obviously strong muscles, tight black clothing, with odd vials along the right side of her belt and holding a trident. Her white fur along her front and along most of her muzzle, with black fur lining that, surrounded by dark blue fur and a blue and white extremely fluffy tail behind her.

" _Oh… Shit."_ I thought to myself worriedly. I couldn't get up. She hadn't seen me yet. But she would definitely recognize me. " _Oh shit oh shit oh shit…"_ I continued in my mind, watching her enter the door.

Stay or help, stay or help… I have to stay.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

"Hey, Sandra, I need that back." I pleaded, bringing my paw slowly forward to the seemingly oblivious feline and snatched it back when I could, putting it back on my belt with a sigh. She whined at me and pouted, before grabbing someone else's half-consumed drink and finished it off. I sighed

Then the doors slammed open.

"Sister."

Sandra swung around before I could hope to react. "Big sis!" She shouted as her tail swished behind her. I tried to leap away, but it caught my entire chest, and there was just a single instant where I was able to mutter a coherent curse before something slammed into my mind. I dropped to my knees, clutching my head, as I felt groggy, unfocused. I've never been drunk in my entire life. I avoided alcohol like the plague. I'm glad I did, if this is what it felt like.

I nearly passed out right there, but I forced myself to stay awake. I looked up, my vision swimming. In front of me was a beautiful girl with white, black, and blue fur. She had a calm yet stern glare about her. And she was wearing minimal clothing. Really, She had a little more clothing than Sandra, just about. She also had a very similar body type. I focused far more than I should ever be normally comfortable with on her looks. I recognized the effects of alcohol as being responsible for my focusing on her black leather bra and a utility belt of sorts with a thin stretchy black material around the rest of the area that served as undergarments. Very scandalous.

I groaned with what little coherence I had left. Christy hadn't been kidding about Sandra's ability to make people drunk. And now Sandra's pretty sister was here, proving once and for all that Christy's **terrible** clothing habits came from exposure to these friends of hers.

But in my state, I was staring at her even as she slammed the single pointed end of her trident into the floor. "What nonsense is this?" She asked. I watched her white hair move through the air as if there was a breeze.

I shook my head. This was really, really bad. I needed to get back to Christy. "Meet my new friend!" Sandra offered, suddenly picking me up by the shoulder and arm, causing me to yelp.

"Watch the arm!" I said loudly. "It's just been dislocated."

"Sister, drop the unique." Armalita commanded Sandra, who did drop me pretty quickly, causing me to slam into the floor and groan in pain, trying to push myself up again. I then felt a blunt thing poke me right in the back of the head. "Stay down, and tell me why you are talking with my sister." She ordered.

"Just talking…" I muttered. "About things…"

"No use interrogating him, Armalita." Mother Bear claimed behind me. "The boy is out of it. Your entrance brought Sandra around to look at you, and he was hit."

She pressed the blunt end of the trident down on my head for another moment. "...Very well." She decided reluctantly, and I looked up once she released the pressure to see her twirl it into place at her side. She looked at Sandra and shook her head, clearly not expecting any sort of explanation from her drunk sister.

I groaned as I got to my knees again, nearly losing my breakfast. Never in the rest of my life would I ever, **ever** touch alcohol. Sandra's effect was utterly debilitating. If she wasn't prone to do this to her allies too, I bet she would have wound up at war. Because she was like that, both of these girls were still alive.

Interestingly, I felt as though I was recovering quicker than I should normally. Perhaps it was this beast form in particular. I was tempted to change right there and find out if I was worse against being drunk in that form, but barely remembered that that would have been a freaking **death sentence**.

I took a table in my paw and hoisted myself up using it, covering my eyes with my arm at the light from the open entrance. "I will take my leave now." Armalita decided. She then walked off while I looked oddly at the spot where she had stood.

I was a little scared now because my aura senses were **completely** gone. Being drunk just made it impossible to use those senses entirely. Adding that to the list of perfectly legitimate reasons never to touch alcohol ever.

"I-" I hiccuped. "I gotta go."

"Okay!" Sandra wrapped me in a hug, squishing me painfully in her unimaginably strong arms. "Say hi to Christy if you see her!"

"Sure... " I muttered incoherently, but then looked around in barely disguised panic. I turned a questioning gaze on Mother Bear.

"She asks everybody to do that." She clarified. I nodded with relief and stumbled out of the bar with my head down and my eyes squeezed shut against the glare of the sun. I then tripped and fell over, my chin hitting the stone painfully.

I hazily blinked open my eyes and brought my eyes up to see a frowning Christy with her arms crossed. She looked absolutely beautiful in that dress… And it showed just enough of her-

"You're talking aloud, Gabriel." She admonished me. She grabbed me and hauled me off to a more secure place while I tried to get my head back in shape. I groaned with my back to the wall in an alley with Christy sitting opposite me.

"What did you get?"

"I can't…" I muttered. "I can't at all. I... " I hiccuped "I need to let this wear off.

"...Alright." She responded. "How long were you drunk?"

"Only after the moment that mean feline person with blue fur slammed the doors open and Sandra whirled to greet her." I slurred. Christy facepalmed before seeming to accept that I had gotten some information at least. We would have to wait a little longer… Just a little longer.

"Oh, Gabriel…" Christy murmured. "Everything's just so complicated."

"I love complicated." I muttered. "Adventure, right?"

She stroked my head with her hand for a while. It was so nice… I hummed with doglike contentment and leaned into her while she sighed in resignation. "Sandra always was difficult…" she muttered.

She set me down and straightened my messed up trench coat, knocking the thing off my belt in the process. It rolled along the ground, causing Christy to pick it up. I smiled at her with a crooked grin, as she started playing with it.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I looked at the boy who was falling asleep, criticizing myself for not just going in there with him or something. Dangerous, maybe, but Gabriel was in bad shape. Now we had to wait until he could properly help formulate a plan to save my sister, or try our best. We had to wait for it, and Armalita had seen Gabriel. I rubbed the guy's head until he fell asleep, hoping he would be fine when he woke up. Maybe the dark of night was better to make an advance anyhow. I sighed a final time, leaning against the wall next to Gabriel and fiddling with the gold object. Why did we even bring this thing? It was so useless, so heavy. But we had to keep it. We just had to.

I clipped it back on the belt of the person I cared for the most and flicked my hand away as he made to hold it in his sleep.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

 **Alright, everybody. That was a chapter... more character development, I know. However, I think this chapter more than promised a reward for being patient with the story and waiting for action, because now they have to get through one of the most heavily defended buildings on their planet. wonderful entertainment and drama headed your way, and the only reason I'm saying that to you is because you probably figured that already.**

 **It's time, everyone, for the end of this chapter. After hopefully emotional stories and some entertainment and introductions of characters, It's time to go until the next time. So I hope you all enjoyed and are satisfied with the chapter. Please review, give me your thoughts on the chapter and inform me of any mistakes or errors or inconsistencies you see. I cannot thank you all enough for reading. Have a good one out there.**


	7. Chapter Seven

**The Kitsune and the Jackal. I was so excited to write this chapter. So, so excited.**

 **Jango: So am I! This'll be fun!**

 **Me: Ho boy... Let's jumpstart this with reviews.**

 **Jango: Kay. I'll handle it for humor's sake.**

 **Me: I can be funny!**

 **Jango: Hush. Strato Abyss, By your review, I bet you were thinking about-**

 **Me: Alright. Review response privileges revoked.**

 **Jango: Well that didn't take long.**

 **Me: Shut up, Jango. Anyways, Strato-abyss, Yes, this story is a bit more mature. I realized that I had started to build up to things being like that for Sandra and Armalita particularly. By the way, I have to say, 'white boy wasted' is an entirely new term for me.**

 **Yeesh, West. Still having that issue? I hope Angelica didn't accidentally make her spell permanent... Yes, Christy seems to be having trouble distinguishing how she is supposed to handle the prospect of future tragedy. As for Deus ex machinas, I don't intend to handle everything that way... At least, I avoid doing it with particularly important things.**

 **Phillip Harbindinger? That's a good question... Gabriel did hear about her ability before. I should make the attempt to fix that. No, it's not based on my own experience. I've never seen somebody badly drunk, so I took my best pass at it. I have not, do not, and never will touch alcohol myself if I can help it. Maybe this chapter will have lots of topics for you to focus on.**

 **And Twistedmoonlight. Yes, the pacing is kind of fast in this story, all things considered. I can only hope it doesn't eventually start seeming rushed. I'm glad you were happy with the chapter.**

 **Thank you four for reviewing.**

 **Jango: You lot read the chapter now. It'll be good, I promise.**

* * *

 **Chapter Seven: Assault**

I groaned first, and woke up second. At least, I think I did. Did I? My head hurt an awful lot, but my mind was way clearer, which was nice. I forced my eyes open to see Christy sitting across the alleyway from me. "...your friends dress horribly." I got out, shaking my head violently.

"I can't tell you why." Christy shrugged. "Glad to see you're back."

"Mostly." I groaned, sitting straight. "We can't walk through the door at all."

Christy nodded. "There will be security, and we will probably have to wear disguises-"

"You don't understand." I interrupted "Armalita does most of her work right inside the main doors."

"...Oh." Christy stopped. "...We'll have to come up with something, then."

"Yeah." I groaned, leaning back again. "Seriously though, I wasn't too surprised by Sandra's clothing choices, but Armalita… If she's going to wear almost nothing, There had better be an awfully good reason. Would it kill her to wear a suit of armor, or a suit at all?"

"I dunno." Christy shrugged "But one thing to understand about Armalita is that she's not going to change her habits just because you tell her off about them. That's a good way to get pinned to the wall by her needles.

"Or her trident," I muttered.

"I **saw** that." Christy agreed "did you see the edges of the side tines?"

"I was wasted."

"Right. Well, they had blades on the sides as well as points, for slashing if need be." Christy nodded. "And we both know she will be an expert at using it."

I nodded, rubbing my head. "And if all else fails, she'll just bash you on the head with the other end." I added, "So what's the plan?"

"We'll have to break in. It's going to set off alarms." Christy said gravely "With Armalita calling the shots for people who enter the compound, they'll know to look for the dual coloring of my fur specifically, and after she saw you in there, it would be an instant death sentence to have you show up with me."

I sighed. "Okay. We have to break in from the room, near where we think we might go, and then… We might have to split up."

"Only if forced," Christy argued.

"Why's that?" I asked her "We can search the compound twice as fast."

"And if one of us dies?" She asked.

I frowned. "Christy…" I said softly, and she stiffened at my tone. "If we stick together, and one of us dies, the other is likely not in a good position to deal with much. We'll be in corridors, and both of us have a severe advantage in corridors. We can do this either way, and by separating, at least one of us might get your sister."

"That logic's busted up." Christy growled, "We stick together."

I blinked in surprise. Christy had just growled at me for doing something that made sense, considering we were probably going to die anyways. I grimaced, realizing the reasoning behind her words, and nodded. "Together, until we have no other choice." I compromised.

"Yeah." Christy nodded. "Let's go. It's early enough, and…"

"Not much else to say." I filled in, standing. "Got your jumpsuit on hand?"

"Yes. Got everything you need?"

"Yeah. We can go at any time. Christy, we're charging without enough of a plan. Can we really do no better?" I saw her close her eyes and look away from me. The answer was clearly 'no'. We had done what we could without attacking anybody in this city for information.

Christy and I took deep breaths, put on our makeshift cloaks and pulled the hoods down over our faces tightly. Then, we stepped out from the alley and started walking towards the compound. I took in the city once more, wondering if this was the last time I would see the beautiful Crescent City.

"Guards on the right, fighting the crowd," Christy called, and we changed our trajectory to move smoothly past them without actually attracting attention. "Glad we chose the black cloth."

"People's eyes just kind of skip over us, huh?" I asked, smiling a little bit. This ease of which we managed to get this far was surprising in itself, but that was encouraging considering what was in this building. But I reminded myself that it would be just as guarded as the complex in my home country.

I took a deep, deep breath. "We're as ready as we possibly can be." I reminded myself aloud, the words lost to most except for Christy.

"Don't go forgetting to breathe…" Christy muttered, quickening her pace suddenly, forcing me to keep pace with her while we walked.

"Duly noted. That's a really big wall." I changed the subject quickly.

"We can both get up there," Christy said. "We shouldn't have to fly for this."

We walked alongside it until we found a thin part of an alleyway that seemed to have been cut off by the wall being built. Nobody was looking at us. Christy slid one of her other tails out of her dress, wrapping around me, and she put another tail up at the edge of the wall. We shared a grim look, knowing we might have to run immediately, and Christy pulled herself and me up the wall swiftly.

We landed lightly on the wall, crouched. Christy quickly hid her second tail. Both of us were completely concealed by the long dark cloaks.

"Hey! What are you doing up there!?"

We jumped down, still properly concealed. I deepened my voice. "Too lazy to use the gate," I said in that voice and then we both darted away from the guard that had seen us.

"Stop!" He shouted even as Christy giggled to herself. I launched her up to the slanted roof of the nearest building and leapt up myself, and we continued.

"'Too lazy to use the gate'?" Christy quoted "Really?"

"Yep," I replied "Gotta get the rest of my witty comments in before everything goes down. And maybe during."

"Alright." She said as we sprinted quietly over the rooftops. She obviously saw something, because she veered away. "The alarms will be going off soon, which probably could have been avoided if we had any other choice, so we need to do this quickly."

She jumped into a small concealed area in the odd set of rooftops surrounding us. It looked like a place where the rain fell into from the room. There was even a drain in the corner that this part slanted to.

"Turn away, you goof." Christy turned me around quickly with two of her tails and got her jumpsuit out. I, still in my dark cloak, pretended that absolutely nothing was going on behind me. Maybe I wasn't completely recovered from Sandra's trick, which I was led to believe because I had the subtle urge to turn my head.

"Done." Christy sad. I turned, and smiled. She had abandoned the dress and cloak, all her six fluffy tails writhing behind her, her pretty face unveiled. She did look fantastic in that jumpsuit as well.

I nodded. "You might want to put that cloak back on until we find a place to enter properly," I suggested, watching her pick it up with one of her tails and draping it over herself once more in response. She had taken the time to pack away that dress, though. Perhaps it would be useful eventually.

We took to sprinting across the rooftops, generally (in my opinion) looking awesome as we ran side by side with the cloaks billowing.

"Stop immediately!" I heard from behind. Some sort of bird taikan had us in his sights. Swooping towards us at intense speeds.

I backflipped over him, letting him see only my cloak as it still concealed my face partially. "Sorry, buddy!" I kicked him straight in the head, sending him towards the ground and using aura flames to stop his fall before he made too much of a racket "We've got a rescue mission to do!"

"That window in the roof there," Christy noted as we continued running. "Good catch with the pigeon bloke, by the way."

"Thanks." I landed next to the window. It was almost like a skylight, but sideways. "Man, neither your main compound or mine makes any sense," I grumbled, straight up yanking it completely off with brute force. Hey, if they were going to notice when we dropped in, then they would have heard it.

"Let's do this," Christy said as she and I swept ourselves through the open window and dropped in crouching positions in the hallway. There was an orange couch in the room extending from this hall, which faced a table. Some chairs also circled the table as well. The architecture and placement of things were very random seeming, which struck me as familiar again.

"Let's move. Keep the cloaks on until you feel it would be reasonable to take them off. Or, you know, for dramatic entrances." I offered. Christy smiled at me even as I led us both in the direction of one of the doors.

The alarms finally started just as I opened it and walked through into the next room. We continued sprinting, knowing that we were looking for something generally prison-looking and this wasn't it. Definitely not. Not with posh couches scattered about.

I once again congratulated myself for remembering to blunt my pawspikes as the door in front of us burst open to reveal a big and strong taikan that I didn't bother to identify by species before I slammed him in the cheek with the back of my paw and slammed him into the doorframe, defeated by the heavy metal-bearing attack.

"Sorry! I exclaimed as I continued running.

"Don't go right over and over!" Christy yelped, steering me left "We need to stay as far away from Armalita as possible, and the main entrance is to the right and back!"

"Noted!" I shouted as we skidded past the next corner and to the left.

I looked left, conference room of sorts, or maybe a lounge? A mix of the two? I looked right. A dormitory? "We're near living quarters. It's not going to be around here." I told Christy, who nodded and forged ahead.

"Oh, **Now** you turn right," I grumbled good-naturedly as we spun around another corner.

"We're still moving away! Do you have any sense of direction!?" She exclaimed, even knowing I was joking.

"Is half your fur blue?" I asked in response to her question. She gave me a light punch and turned another corner.

It turns out running isn't easy to do constantly when you have to make sharp corners over and over again; we kept bouncing off walls to increase our pace. We hadn't expected it to be quick, but in no way had I thought there wouldn't be a single directory or anything. Heck, even my compound had directories that could be accessed by computers (that obviously required passwords, but still).

"You don't happen to have some sort of map would you?" I asked.

"You really meant it when you said you were trying to get all your jokes out!" Christy shouted back at me. There was a slamming noise behind us just as we turned a corner. "We're being followed already!"

"No shit…" I grumbled, "We're making more noise than a rhino in a china shop."

"...Are you speaking from personal experience?" Christy asked, caught off guard considering I had switched up the words in the saying.

"Would you believe me if I said yes?"

"Ha!"

"Door far side," I said shortly, running ahead and vaulting over a very large table in the center of the room, sliding across the other half and hitting the ground running. I sensed enemies on both sides of us as we darted through. Christy followed me, using her tails to help propel herself across the table to catch up with me. "Seriously, though, that rhino did exist, and that china shop is now out of business."

"I'll bet." Christy replied "Right!"

"But that's-"

"Towards the main buildings, yes! It might be easier to navigate, and I might recognize something. And there are people coming from the left!"

We barged into another room and kept going. Sliding into position for the turn in the corridor, we pushed off and sprinted full tilt towards the door on the opposite side.

 **Bang!**

A familiar blue, black, and white taikan burst through the door, an enraged expression on her face, slamming her trident into the floor hard enough to crack it.

I swore violently. Using my tail just in case, I surrounded the both of us in a sphere of aura flames, and we charged forward like a meteor coming in to land. Armalita flicked her tail, and a scarily large amount of needles flew from it, sinking into my aura flames and being blown aside. Armalita growled at this and rolled aside out the door again to avoid being crushed. "Sorry!" I exclaimed as we blew by her and entered a big room.

It was packed with people streaming in from all doors.

"Dammit!" I barreled towards the door furthest away from where the main gate would be. I scattered the people who were there, and ripped open the door. I shoved Christy through it and held it open for a moment as the people around me got their act together. "Be safe," I said as she met my eyes. Her eyes widened, but I pointed down the hall and slammed the door shut, sealing her within the corridor. With Armalita here, Christy was in significantly less danger.

I turned rapidly, my trench coat and cloak alike swirling around with me as I took in my room of opponents. As long as I could manage to keep my flames close by, I could hold them off.

Armalita sprinted in, her tail streaming behind her. She skidded to a stop at the sight of me, standing in the center of the room. I looked about, still surrounded by my flames safely. The room looked like two archways crisscrossed, ending with supports near the center and making way for a large circular skylight that let the sunlight shine down. Armalita stood in the middle of this sunbeam. The room was built of white and blue, the half-arches made of white, and the floor between the four supports was white as well, and everything else was blue colored stone.

"Everyone." Armalita's voice rang out "I will deal with this one personally, in honorable combat." She ordered, "You will attempt to find the other intruder."

" _She's one of_ _ **those**_ _people."_ I thought to myself. I smiled. I could play that game. It would make for an excellent stalling tactic. The rest of the taikans flooding the room slowly walked out. Armalita leaped back when they were halfway out, and when they were all the way out, I stepped away from the door they couldn't enter because I was there. Now we stood equidistant from the sunbeam in the center by about four meters each.

Armalita pointed her trident in front of her, the tip leveling with me. "Show yourself." She ordered. I smirked.

"Haven't recognized my voice yet?" I asked, grabbing the cloak and ripping it off of me, letting it flutter to the floor to my left. Armalita froze at the sight of me, in my black jeans and belt, and cobalt trench coat.

" **You**." She growled, "I should have run you through when I saw you speaking with my sister!"

"Now, hold on a minute." I protested, raising my paws. "That cloak was mostly kept on for the fun dramatic reveal. If you let me explain myself, you might understand why I'm here."

Armalita said nothing for a while. She began pacing to her right, and so did I. We slowly circled the sunbeam in the center. "Then explain." Armalita gestured to me "I will allow it, but I warn you." Her eyes shadowed over "My intent will not change, no matter how reasonable you are."

"This is a rescue mission." I led off, meeting her eyes. "My good friend, my best friend, has recently learned that her sister has been tortured in this place for many years on end, and had believed her dead beforehand. I am here because I wanted to help my friend save her sister. Nothing more, nothing less. When we find her and free her, we intend to flee with her in tow, and never, ever return to Crescent City."

"A noble cause." Armalita agreed monotonously "And I hear no lie in your tone. However, I cannot and will not stop attempting to tear you and your plans down until you succeed, or die."

"Because you are loyal." I nodded. "Because you will do anything for the success of your country, and will do what you must to obey the man in charge."

"Indeed." Armalita nodded now. "If you have no other words…" she pointed her trident at me with one hand. "Shall we dual to the death?"

I frowned and stopped. She stopped as well. "Do you see the spikes on my paws?" I asked. She nodded, tensing. "What did you see when you were close yesterday?"

She frowned. "They were blunt."

"They **are** blunt." I corrected. "I blunted them recently, and I'll keep doing so when they try to regrow. Were I to defeat you, I will not kill you. I never would kill you, Armalita."

"..." Armalita frowned. "My sister only refers to me as 'big sis' she said slowly. "Your partner knows me personally, then."

"Not important," I argued. "My point is that this is not a duel to the death. When you are defeated, not killed, I will be on my way to help my friend rescue her sister."

"I understood." Armalita growled, "But no mercy shall befall you if you lose."

"I understood that bit," I said, standing tall. "That is why, for my friend's sake, I will survive."

"Anything else?" Armalita asked me.

I grinned. "No matter what the outcome of this battle, know that I think… Your wardrobe choices are **terrible**."

She blinked, losing some of the carefully designed composure. "What?' She asked.

I gestured to all of her. "You're wearing practically nothing! How is that even remotely appropriate for battle!? A tight bra and short skintight… Whatever those are? Whether I live or die today, just know that I think it's freaking weird that you would wear so little clothing."

I waited for Armalita to regain her composure as she forced herself back into the official and stern attitude. She forced indifference back into her voice, although not without finding herself give a parting shot in the form of humor. "I might have mistaken you for female." She mumbled, then straightened.

"See!?" I exclaimed "You're capable of humor! I knew it!"

She growled once more. "Prepare yourself!" She called. I took a fighting stance quickly, knowing I was out of time to stall.

Armalita charged, not using her needles at all yet. I wondered why, before I realized that she liked fair fights. I let my flames die out completely and prepared my pawspikes to intercept. Her trident flashed towards me quickly, and I struck the metal cone against it, sliding the trident aside and letting her slide up next to me, aiming a punch for her knee with my free left paw. It might have ended the fight instantly if I had connected.

But that is not what happened. Armalita kept a grip on her trident, and using my right arm as leverage, flipped right over me. I felt her hand lock with my shoulder, and she pulled me above her as she fell back. Then, she delivered a scorching kick to my back, sending me towards the ceiling at top speed. Holy crap, that hurt! I kicked off of the roof and slid to a stop, rubbing my back.

"Alright, I'll give you that one." I groaned. I straightened to see the tops of her trident racing for my face!

I did a trick similar to hers on reflex, knocking her through the sunbeam and onto the floor across the room. "Rude!" I exclaimed, getting to my feet.

She hopped to her feet as well. "This is coming from a man who invaded our home." She said in return. "And I can see that you will be one of those men that just have to blurt out some amusing phrase every once in a while during battle."

"Hey, in my defence." I patted my chest above my spike. "I didn't think I would ultimately survive this trip anyways. I've got to get my jokes in."

She sprinted at me once more, holding her trident now in a manner similar to a staff. I recognized she would be attempting to slash at me. When she spun, I caught the bladed edge of the trident on my pawspike and waited for her next trick. She moved to kick me again, bringing her trident around.

I stepped back, striking her foot from underneath so that she would lose her balance. The warrior immediately abandoned the next strike, which would have passed over my head harmlessly and dropped into a crouch, attempting to sweep me off my feet. I hopped the attack and she just kept at it without tiring, so I ditched that plan and adopted a new fighting stance a meter away from her.

"Your style focuses on redirecting my attacks and counterattacking," Armalita noted, standing up. Neither of us were breathing hard. Neither of us were tired. "Impressive, but it will not get you anywhere with me."

She charged, twirling. She was getting faster of something. As I bent over backwards to avoid the strike, she tripped me at what seemed to be the same time. I gasped, mostly because I couldn't move nearly that fast and be effective with my strikes.

I landed heavily on the ground, and within a second, her trident was poised above my throat. "Unfortunate," Armalita said.

"Sorry." I apologized "In hand to hand combat, with or without weapons, you clearly outmatch me. But I can't just die here. I **can't**. So I have to apologize."

I spread my aura flames around me. Armalita tried to pierce my throat, but my flames caught the warrior's trident and started pushing it back. I expanded my power, standing up slowly. "You were holding back before," I said as I did so. "You didn't want to, clearly, but you saw that I wasn't using my powers yet."

"A unique magic for a unique taikan." Armalita nodded as she stepped back. "I would have preferred to simply end it there, but it seems that that will not be so."

I took my stance, my flames extending from my tail and swirling around me in a sphere. Armalita's tail swished behind her and upwards, the large fluffy object raising almost like a scorpion's tail. She suddenly whipped her tail around, and I covered the area around me with aura flames. Immediately, thin, dangerous looking needles with both blue and white coloring flew through the path to me in a storm, sticking partially into my wall of flames. I let the flames die away, and the needles dropped to the ground.

I got an idea. I surrounded my paws with the flame and then built an aura sphere within them, making it seem like the flames were helping me conjure it. I launched the flaming sphere like I would normally at her, and she rolled aside. The ball struck the wall and exploded, doing a fair bit of damage.

Armalita stood up. "You knew I would dodge that." She accused.

"Maaaybeee," I admitted, rubbing the back of my head. I had the decency to look sheepish about the damage I caused. Then I started sprinting towards her, enveloping myself in flames. Her needles had gone maybe an inch into the flames, so a typical flame coating wasn't going to completely protect me.

I sent a burst of flame in her direction as she lowered herself onto all fours and arched her tail just like a scorpion, the needles flying towards the flames and being knocked away. Her trident flashed directly in the sunbeam as we met in the center, and my left pawspike did just the same. I blocked her, and she blocked me. I shifted to my right to avoid a swarm of needles and she shifted right to avoid a burst of aura fire that would have sent her flying way back into the wall. We continued in super close combat while I threw punches and deflected that trident that kept threatening to decapitate me.

"Fall!" Armalita shouted, bringing down the trident with the apparent intent to vertically cleave me in two. Seeing the blade coming down at me, reflecting the sunlight in the center of the room made for a pretty sight, but not a sight I wanted to see **up close**.

I snapped my paws together to catch the blade, holding it in place. There was a pause, and then I breathed out in relief. I surrounded myself in swirling flame and the blast of the attack sent Armalita spinning away from me. I had to let go of her weapon because the girl had a death grip on it and I didn't want to hurt her too badly.

"You're too soft," Armalita grumbled as she advanced at a more controlled pace. Her trident spun erratically between her fingers as she stepped forward. The taikan glared at me as she stepped forward, her face the definition of determination.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure these spikes aren't the only parts of my body that are metal." I joked, blowing aside a few needles with another sideways wave of aura-fire.

"Clever." She said drily. "Why is it that you seem not to care about the threat to your own life?"

"No family to look forward to seeing again." I started, tapping the toes on my paw to count "Natural sense of humor, and a natural drawing towards danger."

I turned fully to her. "I am here because my best friend, savior, and overall wonderful person needs to save her sister from this place, and if doing what I'm doing will help her do that, then I'll give my life for it without hesitation. Because I have nothing else to do and nothing to lose."

"You care for her," Armalita said. I stopped and looked at her.

"We grew close." I admitted "And I like her, of course I do. But we have to grow distant quick. Because we knew that one or both of us were going to die."

I sighed. "Not that it worked too well. The best I can hope for is that she doesn't feel the same."

"It would be helpful if that were the case." The taikan brandished her trident at me.

"Yeah," I said. I got a little more creative with my fire, spinning it around me and preparing another sphere of aura energy. I then leapt above the girl and threw the sphere downwards. Armalita cartwheeled away in the direction I had come from to avoid it. And suddenly I was in the middle of the dust cloud. I had my cover, and she was unprepared. I finally, **finally** got to shift forms safely. My bow in my hand, my shirt and shoes appearing on my body.

I pulled the strong back, Made sure the light was the cylindrical aura burst, and fired the quick shot. I then shifted again and leaped up and out of the cloud.

Armalita was struck in the stomach, not quick enough to avoid my expert strike. She had a shocked expression as she flew back and slammed into the far wall. It was as she slid down that I landed at her feet and kicked away the trident. I was surprised that she relinquished it, but she did get hit really hard.

"..." Armalita looked at her weapon, and she saw that my flames still expanded enough to protect me. "I concede defeat." She nodded slowly "If I may ask...How is it that a boy with no family has such an intense love of life?"

I smiled. "I had a very powerful and very wise mentor." I said "Who taught me that all lives matter, even the lives of the enemy. And he also taught me the value of choice. Loyalty, he says, is only the owner's to give. You choose to give your loyalty to a man you do not necessarily agree with because your values, the values you grew up with, dictate that he will have your loyalty. Not that he deserves it or even needs it, but that he will have it. And it is not my place to try and change that."

Armalita nodded. "Much as I would like to fill your chest with needles just because you left your guard down, that wouldn't be too honorable. Knock me out before I change my mind." She requested.

"Yes, Ma'am!" I saluted cheerfully, jokingly. I got the girl to chuckle, which was fantastic, considering how formal and stoic she was. I had totally accidentally let my fire die out. I swiveled and kicked her with a disabling strike, knocking her across the floor. "Sweet dreams," I said, before sprinting for the door that I sent Christy through.

Thankfully, she hadn't dawdled around. I couldn't see her. I nodded to myself and darted forward. The rooms seemed to become nicer, which was not what I was looking for. I would have to find a path to a less well-kept area if I wanted to find prisons, I figured. I was guessing, but if it was my best shot.

But I felt something really weird as I skidded to a stop. The aura in the room near me was fluctuating madly. I looked at it cautiously. '0FD' seemed to be the room identification. The number and letters meant little to me, honestly.

I pulled the handle down, checking to see if there were witnesses, and stepped in. I closed the door slowly, quietly, and turned around to view the room.

It was quiet. Very quiet. There was nobody home. Red furniture littered the place. Extremely squishy red couches, a small table for one. There was a bloody tea set here, for crying out loud. The kitchen was standard, but everything was black colored. The cupboards above the cooking counters were brown, but they had red highlights.

The bed had black pillows and a red comforter. The carpet was in a peculiar design of swirling black and red, seemingly unorthodox.

And there were paintings. I stepped up to one at my eye level on the wall above the nightstand. It depicted a black house and a red everything else. But the red paint itself was thicker in places, namely, where the sun was meant to be. It was a painting of a silhouette of a house, then. The windows were not visible, although the black paint was less thick there; less had been used there. The artist described the presence or lack of something through the thickness of the paint.

The image soothed me. Something about it made me wonder what was in that house, and I saw the house as a protection of sorts. The dark fortress protecting something from a piercing, volatile light. The building itself looked like a cottage, which made an odd impulse arise in my thoughts. Why was I so certain that the black building was protection, when it had the appearance of a run down, easy to break into cottage?

I looked to the next one. It was mostly black, much unlike the last one. A four pointed star of red shone above a forest. It was clearly at night. Aside from that star, almost the entire painting was black. Strangely, I could tell there was a forest in that blackness.

I stepped closer, and I saw why. Not only was the thicker paint used in this instance once more, there was the slightest edge of red between the trees and the star. There was no danger in this image. Not at all. Something about it…

It was like a stab to the heart. This was a very nice looking forest. One very similar to the forest that Christy and I had walked through between Cardinal Town and the mountains. The painter had obviously been there, but the star was a mystery. What did it mean for the artist?

The next painting I looked at was very odd. Red, with a black… Spiderweb? No, it was not a spiderweb. This was unorderly, and the red pieces clearly seemed to be falling out. This was an image of breaking glass. The glass pieces at angles were once more represented by thicker paint on the parts of the glass that were supposed to be closer to me, decreasing in thickness at a gradient over time. The black cracks were uniform in thickness, so the glass pane had originally been facing directly at me.

What had broken this glass? Why was this image one of the few that did not give me a sense of peace or a good state of mind? Something had been broken, damaged, when the artist painted this work of art.

If not looked at closely, the next painting could have simply been black eyes, shoulders, arms and legs and the outline of a tail. The right hand of the being depicted reached out towards me, and I felt the urge to step forward as well. But what leapt out at me the most is that the thickest part of the black portions of color was not the hand that was near me, but the eyes.

"Why are your eyes so deep?" I asked aloud, quietly. I was sure of it. I was meant to depict the eyes as extremely deep, far back, not quite a bit forward. It was like they were… Hollow. Now, hollow eyes usually meant depression, or not being there in the first place, commonly using white when put in an artist's perspective. But there in the red was a point where the paint was thicker. It was clearly a warm smile when looked at extremely up close. The welcoming hand, the smile… Why were the eyes hollow and lifeless?

I moved to the other side of the room. The next painting was very odd. Six tails were depicted. Alternating colors. Some of them were black with red tips, and some of them were red with black tips. Three of each. And all of them circled a red image of a crown. The rest of the painting was black, but very lightly applied black, so everything else could be seen when looked at up close.

The tails looked an awful lot like Christy's…

The next image held a clock. Very easy to discern with the black background, the red clock face, and the black lines and numbers. But what caught my attention was the fact that it was a stopwatch; the button atop it was pushed down. And there seemed to be three sets of minute hands and hour hands and second hands, all showing different times. It could have been nine-oh-three, or nine-oh-forty two, or nine-oh thirty-seven. The hours sat on nine, two, and four.

I looked around the room, reappraising it. There was no clock on the walls. No clock next to the bed. Nothing to tell the time in the room.

There were many, many more littering the room, the stands, the counters. Some were simplistic, some were impossibly complicated for only having two colors. I stepped over to an actual easel, and pulled the cover off of it.

It was partially completed. Only the red had been done, and only for half of it. I was certain that the wolf in the image was the same as the woman in the painting from earlier. Her eyes, presumably black, were not drawn in yet. Beside her, partially done, was the head and shoulders of a little girl leaning on the woman. Her eyes were red. Filled with life.

For red and black to mean anything the artist wanted them to was incredible. It made me yearn to look more, to discern every conceivable meaning hidden in the canvas.

I memorized the features of the woman with the hollow, deep eyes. Then, I slid the cover back over it, making sure it was properly put back. I sighed, understanding what I was seeing, yet unsure of its meaning, and I walked to the door.

I could not resist a look back at the room before I stepped outside again.

The aura irregularity was gone. I wondered why my old friend and mentor (because I was sure it was him) had done that.

I looked left and right, and ultimately started moving just the way I was before. Nice room or not, I had a job to do.

But now I had a heavy heart after seeing that. That painting must have sat unfinished for years or something. I needed to find Raina. **Now**.

I started running quietly. I had to run slower, not intending to get into any trouble at all. I turned left and continued moving, reckoning that Christy would have gone straight. We needed to move different directions after this hallway, or we would never make any real progress.

I wondered where everything was. Christy hadn't known enough for us to understand exactly where we were… Not at all. However, she did know the path to her own room. However, that was not worth looking at right now. It may still have some of Christy's things, maybe not. Either or, it would not help me save Raina.

I stopped at a nearby corner, listening for anything. My aura senses told me that here was a person there. He was guarding something. What would that be?

I straightened and put on a serious expression, mentally grinning to myself. This would be great. I stepped around the corner and walked up to the man. Ho looked at me, startled, but I called out. "Excuse me," I said as I stepped forward. "Have you recently seen the intruders spotted in the building?"

Because I spoke like an official, and acted as if he wasn't looking at the intruder right this minute, he quickly assumed I was one of the elites or something and was looking for them. "Uh, ah, no sir!" He exclaimed. I fought the urge to smirk.

I had to take a risk here. "If I may, I have been chasing one of the perpetrators for many minutes, and have managed to entirely lose my way. What is it you are guarding?" I asked.

"This is one of the interrogation rooms, among… Other things." He answered.

I made the effort to grimace. "I see." I nodded grimly. "I received a report that the unidentified intruder was searching for a prisoner. Are there prisoners held in this sector?"

"Uh… Yeah. I'll keep vigilance, sir!"

"If I may, I wish to question some of these prisoners, discover who this person might be after," I said. The man blinked, nodded silently, and stepped aside.

I opened the door deliberately quickly and marched inside. Just like that, I was in the area. I walked along a much less well kept corridor, glanced to my right into a window, and stopped. That must be a monitor room of sorts. I turned around, and entered the door a bit behind me.

I walked in as if I owned the place, keeping up my act.

"Hey." a voice said. I turned, seeing a taikan with blue fur much like the color of my coat and blue eyes. He shifted way to uncomfortably as he stared at me. "You're not allowed in here."

"Super important business," I said, stepping up and looking at where the monitors would be in my country. Instead, there were metal rings of multiple metals with rippling images on them. Magic surveillance. There were a lot of these things, and the images showed the cells. There were regular cells, and very run down cells. Heck, there were even a few that might be considered comfortable. The cells had taikans and even a few prokopians. I couldn't take the time to free them or even visit them, lest they recognize me. "Are there any more cells in this area that are not under surveillance?" I asked.

"You're the intruder." I heard. I turned, looking and feeling surprised.

"Yes," I admitted, putting myself between him and the door.

"Why are you here?"

"My best friend's sister is held somewhere in this building, and I'm going to rescue her," I explained simply, leaning against the door. "And then we're going to leave, and never show up again, if everything goes well."

The guy was about my age, but he seemed like he was way younger with the way he cowered, as if fearful for his life. I sighed and shook my head. "I'm not gonna hurt you," I promised. "We're not here to hurt anybody. We just want my friend's sister, and we'll go."

"Y-you hurt Armalita." He pointed out. I blinked, wondering how he knew that. "I kind of learned how to change what the lenses showed." He admitted. Not doing his job properly then. I grinned at the guy's antics. Armalita looked about his age, after all.

"She wouldn't have let me by unless I fought, and asked me to knock her out when she lost," I explained.

He flinched. "That… Sounds like her. I didn't have audio or anything." He said.

"You aren't attacking me, either," I noted. "Meaning you don't want to."

He slowly moved into a defensive position. "I-I need to. It's my duty." He said, almost as if he was trying to be like Armalita in that way. I sighed and shook my head once more.

"I'm not going to attack you. You're shaking enough that a good gust of wind would blow you right over." I told him. "I'd leave right now, but I'd like you to agree not to go and shout out where I am. I would prefer it if the sister of my best friend weren't being tortured until whatever stupid government leader in charge of her torment decides to mercifully kill her, which they probably won't do, because the whole point of doing it's probably to get my friend to come back."

He walked towards me slowly, shakily clenching his hands into fists. He brought one fist back and threw it at my gut. I did **not** expect to be forced to double over in pain, grunting. "H-holy shit, you hit like a **truck**!" I exclaimed, wheezing. "I mean, that Sandra girl could probably do better, but **wow**!"

My slight exaggeration wasn't totally intended. Still, that didn't feel too good. He seemed to gain a little confidence and threw another punch, but this time, I shoved it aside with my arm, letting him hit the door instead. Doors don't have nerve endings.

"If I really have to, I'll knock you out." I said softly "But I don't want to."

He stepped back. "I-I have no real combat training." He admitted "No skill with anything. Being hard to hurt's no good if I can't do anything with it."

I closed my eyes. "Your fur is metal. You're a cobaltum variant of a taikan, and I've never seen a metal dog taikan before in all my travels in this country. What's your story?"

He started, staring at me. "Not much of one…" he muttered "Woke up one day, they tell me I've got amnesia for no apparent reason. Next day, the Prosecutor tells me that they lied to me, but that sadist won't give me anything else to work with in terms of information. Now I'm here. They don't seem to trust me, so they tossed me into this job here. Been here three years, but the Prosecutor keeps saying ten years."

"Ever asked her what she meant?" I asked.

"I tried." He rubbed his arm "She hurt me."

"With your metal fur?" I asked, raising a brow.

"Her claws are sharp." The cobaltum taikan explained, "And she's fast."

I winced. "Let's hope I don't meet her then. Got a name?"

"Well… Nobody ever gave me one. I've just been doing my job and taking whatever meals I can get. I just… Sit or stand in this room or my bedroom, because there's nothing else to do."

"Makes you worry when someone tries to break in, huh?" I asked. "...Am I the first person to actually hold a conversation with you?"

"Well… Armalita talks to me occasionally. She checks up on prisoners and such, makes sure they're being treated properly but insisting on a balance between treating them like prisoners and treating them like people. She obviously doesn't have anything to do with the torture stuff that goes on. I just… Turn off those rings when that starts."

"One of these?" I asked, tapping one of the rings on the right.

"I keep those off after… Well, nobody's in those cells anymore. 'Cept for the last one on the bottom. The Prosecutor herself sometimes goes down there."

"Cell number?" I asked, shivering to myself.

"It's-" the guy cut himself off "I'm not supposed to be talking to you!"

"You seem like a good guy," I said quietly. Please. A person who did no harm is being tortured in this building and I think the person in that cell might be her. Tell me the cell number, Cobalt."

He stilled, looking at me weirdly. "What?" He asked.

"I gave you a name. Cobalt." I said "I need to call you by **something**. And I can tell you don't like what's happening around here. I know you watch people disappear as they are sent off to war and grimace, thinking it's all so unnecessary."

"How? How do you know that?" He asked, growing frustrated.

I lowered my gaze. "That's why I ran myself," I told him. "If you wanted… You could come with us."

"I… I have a duty…" he started, but faltered.

"Are you kidding me? Armalita is the only one that talks to you, and you are practically kept in here until you go to your room occasionally. Cobalt, you're as much of a prisoner in this monitor room as any of the people in the cells!"

Cobalt flinched.

"I can't even promise I'll survive long enough to get out of here." I muttered "But so far, it's looking pretty optimistic. You know the way to the front door, right? Surely you can walk out of there and into the city. From there, you can join us and we'll be in the wind. If we survive, that is."

Cobalt stepped away from me, looking very conflicted. He stared at the images, and his hand near the image rings twitched. "..." he looked between the images and me for quite some time. "...Cell Zero-F-D" he said "The Prosecutor renamed it herself, for some reason."

"Thanks." I was gone.

I sprinted down the hall of cells, ignoring the shouts from within some of them. I couldn't lead a damn prison break here. I had to get one person out and just one. Most of the others here were probably there for a reason.

Most of the had just numbers. Except for one, with the metal plate above the door covered by a different one. This plate had actual color. Red. Black letters and the number. '0FD'

I skidded to a halt, and I stared. The cell was clean. I mean, really clean. There wasn't a bed, there wasn't anything other than the stone walls… And the chains. Chains hung from the ceiling all over the place, from the cracks in the ceilings that seem intentionally made. Water dripped from the ceiling in places that I figured were deliberate faults in some sort of water system.

And among the black stones and chains, the one source of white shone in the dark, very difficult to miss. She leaned against the back wall. A black blade curved from the side of her head. Black spikes came from her elbows. Her feet were bare, and more claws came from her toes. The claws on her fingers, however, were large and sharp looking. Her tail was out to the side as she leaned against the wall, the black blade gleaming in the dark. Her muzzle was short, kind of catlike. Her bright red eyes looked straight at me. She was about my height, with very… Large assets. Much like her picture that Christy had on her christmas tree, her curves were very extravagant, although it wasn't like she wouldn't be able to balance and walk properly. Not **that** bad. Still, pretty bad. What made it worse was that she wore exactly what she wore in that same picture, those odd white and silver sleeves from her wrist to her elbows, and from her ankles to her thighs. Useless, useless clothing choices.

Something felt off. I walked through the open door and stepped up to Raina, making a point to completely ignore her curves and focus on her face. "Raina," I said.

"And who are you?" She asked.

"A friend," I said. "I'm going to get you out of here." I tried to figure out why else I felt odd. Something was very different from how I had expected this to go.

"Alright." She said softly, standing up fully and walking towards me. The way she walked exaggerated her body, which I chose to ignore as well. This was only part of the battle. I now had to get her **out** of here. And I needed to find Christy first, wherever she was. "Tell me what's going on." She said in a tone that made me pause. It was very assertive. I shook my head and continued on.

"There's surveillance. I can't give you all of the details." I said "We'll do that once we find y-... My friend. Once we get outside, too."

"The interrogation room has no surveillance." She told me. That made sense to me. After all, I had to explain at some point. She might believe I was another part of whatever torment she suffered.

She walked briskly ahead of me and knocked the door open. We slipped inside quickly, and I turned to her. "Alright." I said, "Here's the deal. Christy, your sister, and I have come to rescue you."

Genuine surprise arose on her face "'Christy?" She asked.

"Yeah. Christy." I said, sitting myself down at the small table while Raina herself stood at the other end. She smiled at me, and I allowed myself to relax. Despite the feeling I had gotten, I knew we would be safe. We wouldn't be discovered for a while. "I ran from the war, preferring peace. And I met Christy outside her home. She and I… We finally knew what you were going through and came to rescue you."

"Rescue me, huh? After eleven years?" She asked a bit gruffly. I couldn't put my finger on what I was missing, darn it. "Did she think I was dead?"

"Yeah." I nodded. Raina kept eye contact with me while fiddling with my gold object.

Wait…

"Is this yours?" She asked, flipping the switch.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I sprinted along, trying to find a file room or something. Maybe a surveillance room. I had gone in the general direction of the right of the entrance, aware that I was also getting further from the entrance. But that didn't matter. If Raina was back here, I would be too.

My tails streamed out behind me now. I couldn't care less if anybody saw them. In corridors like this, I could defend myself properly. I just had to void large room.

I knew that the surveillance rooms were generally kept in obscure places where people might not look immediately. This allowed for the taikans to avoid enemy attacks on those places, destroying either our files or rendering us blind. Security through obscurity.

But these halls just didn't end properly, and taikans kept showing up. I would have to knock them out and move on as I continued. I wouldn't dare hurt them more than necessary, but I did find it necessary to erase their memories when I did.

Granted, the cloak helped, although I no longer covered my face with it and my tails could probably be seen by somebody if they took the time to check. But the cloak was long and billowy and stuff, so…

I wasn't happy. No sir, not happy at all. I was pissed off, actually. Gabriel shoves me through a door, closes it on me, and goes and fights Armalita, **Armalita** , alone. I wondered now if my best friend had a freaking death wish or something. Turns up on my front 'porch' nearly dead from the cold, does his best to get himself in danger against Aminity, etcetera.

I shook my head. Mentally distancing myself from him was pointless at this stage. If anything happened to him, I would be crushed. That was my mistake, but… I couldn't **help** it. I think it really hit me finally when I told him about my family. He reminded me of my mother in a lot of ways.

I continued on with a heavy heart. The place wouldn't be labelled, I reminded myself, but the place would definitely seem more run down, and I am pretty sure the door would be metal, perhaps intentionally looking rusty and unused.

Clever, but if you're me, and know what to look for, not as clever.

I finally, finally found it. A taikan ran away from me having spotted me down the corridor, but I stretched my tails the whole way, snagged him, and slammed him into the ground. I used my mind power to quickly wipe him, and then I saw the door I was looking for.

I burst inside, retracting my tails and slammed the door shut. As an afterthought, I kept a tail on the handle in case somebody tried to follow me.

There were windows covered in blinds on the wall. If I wasn't careful, someone might see my shadow on the office style drapes.

I whipped my head around over and over, blinking. There were files and monitors here, and a very startled guard who I promptly knocked out and wiped. I couldn't afford to be nice or honorable or at least explain myself. This was an in and out mission.

I cursed to myself. Thirty minutes had passed by now. I was **deep** within the building. This place would be swarming with people soon. The guard I had just wiped had been surveying me for a while, probably alerting sectors I was near. If he went dark now, I was toast.

I flinched. This was going to violate every possible moral I had about using more than one tail's worth of power with mind magic. But somewhere in this room had to be the information I needed to get to my sister, and that mattered above all other things.

"Sorry, buddy," I muttered, forcibly waking the guy up with more mind magic. He looked at me wildly, and jabbed the button for the alert, but I then assaulted his mind with four of my tails.

" _You will misguide the others you intend to alert. Claim I am moving away from this location, preferably sending this whole area into a panic by misleading multiple areas."_ I ordered mentally, blasting the poor man's mind with my order. I rubbed my eyes and released the man, who began to follow my orders with a blank expression, his eyes glazed over He'd recover. Eventually.

"Let's see… Raina, Raina, R. R." I muttered to myself, looking at the letters that organized the files. I found R, and swiftly yanked like seven drawers open. All loaded with papers. I took a deep breath, and dived into the files.

I looked at the first drawer .Raina's name's second letter was an 'a', so theoretically her name would be closer to the initial start of the R section. I looked at a title, saw nothing of value, and tossed it away. I did it again, and again, and again.

And then… Raina. Near the bottom of the 'Ra's, but it was **there**. I halted for a moment. I might be about to read the details of her **torture**. I shook my head and tore it open. There were names. Lots of names in here right off the bat. Inmates? The first name on the list, in large letters, was the word 'Prosecutor'.

My sister's name wasn't on the list. I set it aside carefully, in case I had to cross-reference this Prosecutor person. I looked at the next page.

...It was another list. This file was full of lists of names under the word 'prosecutor' right now. What kind of sick joke was this?

I tore through the lists, checking each and every name. They weren't alphabetized, so it was likely that these people went through… Something, in this order. Raina's name **had** to be on there. Somewhere, they had to be. Why would this list be in Raina's file if she wasn't on it? It wouldn't, right?

I searched every list, ignoring the blabbering man beside me as he used different items to transmit his voice across the place and announce where I was apparently going. No Raina. Not once mention of her name. I choked and threw the last page haphazardly away. That was a waste of my time!

I snatched up the next set of papers. These, these were what I was looking for. Imprisonment records. I shifted through them. Three years. I frowned. There were only three years worth of imprisonment that they recorded for Raina. I felt a chill. A burning cold roaring through my veins. Was Raina actually… Alive? Did she die eight years ago from the treatment they gave her?

There were no more files in here, but I lifted one of the papers that were a part of the list. 'Prosecutor.'

If my sister was dead, I may have someone to blame. There wasn't any recent information on Raina at all. I moved to the man at the rings on the wall that showed many things. "Change one of these to anything related to the Prosecutor," I ordered, watching him comply. An interrogation room appeared, rippling on the liquid-like image until it cleared. It wasn't being used right now.

I kept the imprisonment papers in my hand and searched the file drawers for 'Pr', finding it quickly. I choked. The number of files in the 'P' section was massive. I picked a spot at random and ripped out a bunch of files. They were labeled with odd names right before the 'r' secondary letter section. I flinched. I wasn't very far into the 'P' section right now.

I ripped open a different drawer. Packed full of files labeled 'prosecutor'.

This person's files were huge, and full of lists. And details. I shivered. There were so many details… Blood loss, wounds. The file gave every horrific detail of what this prosecutor person did to their subjects in the interrogation room. But the physical details were just words. They could only make me feel sick. What truly shocked me was the description made for what the prosecutor was specifically doing and what they described their feelings as. They were clearly sadistic.

I looked at the interrogation room again. It looked nice and tidy. How often had blood been spilt in that room? The lists went on for **miles**! Okay, not literally, but there had to be hundreds of names in the past eight years. And from what I could tell, this person enjoyed doing it. **A lot**.

If I found Raina's name on one of her lists, this prosecutor was going to meet a very angry six-tailed fox. **Very. soon**. I was shaking as I read it. Shaking with a growing, very hot anger. If I didn't get it together quickly, My 'peace' thing was going out the window.

" _Calm, Christy."_ I scolded myself " _Only tear the prosecutor apart if-... No, no tearing anything apart. Calm."_

It was harder for me, likely because it was my sister. I had this boiling feeling in my chest, just like the feeling I got when I first learned that my little sister was being tortured. That burning feeling that told me to find the ones who hurt my sister and to tear them limb from limb and turn the remains into black marks on the ground with my flames.

I kept looking through the papers I had. There were assignment details. I needed these specifically. I needed a name. I needed **something**.

"By the authority of Malvolio Kaeser…" I muttered, reading aloud "The position of the head of the torture and interrogation division shall be presented to-..."

I read it once, twice. Three times. I read it a fourth time and a fifth time. That wasn't right. That didn't make sense.I tore through the files and the lists again, shaking with disbelief and confusion. Prosecutor. Prosecutor. **Prosecutor**.

I looked at the room in the ring, and my breath caught. That was Gabriel there. And he was accompanied by the one who I easily recognized. Black blades and claws on her body, particularly voluptuous, lack of real clothing, long fur coming from her back like fake wings. It was **her**. My **sister** , talking with Gabriel in the same room where all of that torturing happened.

I brought my hands to my mouth in horror. There was no blood, everything was clean, Raina, my own sister, was smiling sweetly she fiddled with our golden item.

" _Oh god, Gabriel, get out of there. Get out of there right now."_

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

"Raina, please. We need to focus." I said. "Leave first, banter later."

"I don't see why. We're not going to be interrupted here. Victims aren't brought in until a few days or so." She reasoned "Every three days or so, actually."

I stood up and started pacing. This girl was acting very strangely. She didn't sit down, her fur was neat and tidy and she seemed to be trying to stay off topic. Her smile would have most men reeling (not me), and she kept moving and talking in a way as if she wanted me or other people to make certain assumptions about her. Her fur was neat and tidy, thick enough to cover what her clothes didn't to be honest, with no wounds or scars-

I stopped, facing the door. No wounds. No scars.

I whipped around to face her, a question ready.

I saw a flash of black and white.

Pain exploded across my face.

I blacked out.

* * *

 **So that happened. I've been waiting for this for ages.**

 **Did I get'cha? Huh? Huh?**

 **I have almost nothing to say, except don't judge Armalita too harshly. She couldn't have known about Gabriel's other form. Please review and tell me what you thought of the chapter, the battles, and the different things you saw. Thank you, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.**


	8. Chapter Eight

**So here I am, sheepishly rubbing the back of my neck as I stand to face the music for my actions. What actions? Why, me updating Silent instead of this to make people wait longer on the cliffhanger. I think I'm finally done chuckling evilly, so...**

 **Jango: You done goofed, Hyper.**

 **Me: Shut it. It was partially your idea.**

 **Jango: Whatevs. Reviews! At least two people were completely unsurprised by Raina's actions after all the hints you gave. Good thing you said that in a more teasing way than an actual question.**

 **Me: Shh. I was feeling evil that day, okay?**

 **Jango: It's happening more often. (Grins) You're doing well, my-**

 **Me: I swear, if you say 'young apprentice', we're going to have issues. Anyways, Twistedmoonlight, I wonder who Cobalt seems familiar to to you.**

 **Jango: West, however, has no trouble identifying the metal furred taikan. Oh, and he wishes you luck in your next attempt to surprise him. You got Phillip Harbininger tho'.**

 **Me: Okay... Finally, AGuyWithNoSkills has joined us, only to land on the deep end of a cliffhanger. Which makes it particularly evil of me to have updated Silent instead when I was scheduled to update this one. Ah well. I am glad you are taking interest in this story, and I hope that you will continue to enjoy it over time.**

 **Alright. Reviews aside, let's kick this chapter off and let everything fall into place!**

* * *

 **Chapter Eight: Torment**

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I backed away slowly, one step at a time. Watching the image as if it would come alive and attack me. This had to be some sort of sick joke. But I knew I wasn't hallucinating. I had the mind magic; I knew what having my mind messed with would feel like. This was very much the real thing.

My sister had just attacked Gabriel with the speed and skill of a trained warrior, knocking him out, and the precision of her strike suggested she knew how to properly assassinate someone if she tried. My steps took me straight into the far wall, which I bumped into. I swallowed, clenching my eyes shut as I watched Raina stand over Gabriel without doing anything for several minutes.

And then she looked right at where the camera was and smirked. My heart nearly stopped, as I wondered for a moment if she knew I was there. She couldn't possibly, could she? I never once saw her with an ability to tell that sort of thing.

I tried to calm my breathing, but couldn't. If Raina was in there with Gabriel, alone, and she was going to hurt him… Gabriel was in danger. Grave danger. But my body didn't move immediately. I was shuddering in place, staring in horror because that was legitimately all I could do.

Everything was wrong.

I clenched my hands around some papers. Assignment orders. Raina's assignment orders. I had names of people to deal with. Someone had turned my sister into a monster and… And…

And they were going to **pay**. Right after I saved Gabriel, nothing was going to stop me from dealing with the people responsible for this. **Nothing**.

I needed to save Gabriel right now. "Tell me where that is," I ordered, roughly pressing three of my tails against the head of the man who still sat at the desk. He started babbling on, and I listened intently enough to catch everything. I memorized it and knocked him out quickly. Incriminating papers still clenched in my hand, I slammed the door open with one of my tails and stepped outside.

Right into the path of another taikan. Gabriel would have been happy with the clothing choices she had, as she wore black and white armor, though it was mostly black with white lines along the chest. It was tight on her, however, showing her curves off. Her smirk made me mad immediately for some reason. Her eyes were mismatched; one blue eye and one orange eye. She blinked at me, and the colors switched.

"Kayterayn," I growled. "Get out of my way."

"Hey, Chris," she said, her hand on her hip. Her wrist had a pink spinning item that floated about the area, pink stars glowing and spinning around the pink wristband. It looked like a magical weapon of sorts. "Glad you could join me." she continued, pointing her hand that had the band on it right at me.

"Let me by before I hurt you," I growled. "I have two people depending on me."

"Aw. That's so sweet." Keyterayn said. "She let you go a long time ago. Y'know, after-"

 **Crash**.

I whipped my tail and slammed her into the side of the corridor, letting her groan there as I tried to get past. "I don't have time to waste," I growled menacingly as I passed, for some reason **really** hating the smirk that had been on her face. It was almost as if she was alright with whatever happened to Raina. She certainly knew something about it. Asking her about it would be pointless right now-

 **Clank**!

My muzzle slammed into a pink glowing wall that appeared out of nowhere, and I toppled back with my back hitting the floor.

"That wasn't very nice, Chris," Keyterayn commented as she got up to her feet. "Running off on me without so much as a 'hello'. And I thought you would have wanted to know all sorts of things about what they did to poor little Raina."

She still had that **damn smirk on her face**!

I snarled and thrust a fireball at her from my tail. She held out her right hand, which was adorned in the freaky pink wristband thing, and a wall of translucent pink energy shimmered into existence just long enough to dissipate the flames.

"You can't touch me." she told me.

"Shut up!" I screamed. "Wipe that damn smile off your face! I know Raina was tortured before this! What the hell did you sick pieces of shit do to my sister to make this happen!?"

The smirk did **not** disappear. "Oh, Chris…" Keyterayn said with a soft, teasing voice. "She loves her job."

"It's **Christy**!" I shrieked, stretching my tails towards her at an intense speed, intending to smash her into the wall, and maybe through into the next few walls as well. Her stupid shield popped up again, covering the entire corridor and blocking me from striking her down.

"Shut it, Chris," Keyterayn ordered as she stepped forward, her shield moving with her. "You walked out on our war, our fantastic war that we are determined to win at any cost. Any. Cost!"

"What the hell happened to **you**!?" I asked, setting my tails on fire and bashing her wall repeatedly. I was going to start burning a lot more than her shield if she kept irritating me. I felt rage. Powerful anger roaring through me. My sister had caused pain, so much pain. My **sister** , and she'd been doing it for years. And someone had done something to her to cause it, I was sure of it. No way could she do it on her own. She was a sweet, kind girl who never did anything wrong when I left her, ad she learned from her mother as I did. There **had** to be a cause. **Had** to be.

"Does it matter?" the feline asked, continuing to walk forward, her damned shield advancing on me as well.

I scowled even deeper, my muzzle aching from the downward force I was applying to my lips. "You know what, no." I decided. And I shot my tails straight through the walls around me, and drove them through the spaces filled with weaker material towards her shield and behind it. "I don't have time for this."

She waved her arm around, her magical item on her wrist causing little square screens of pink energy until she was surrounded by a box. This occurred just before I was able to smash my tails through the walls and try to capture her. She was entirely protected even as I wrapped my tails around her shell over and over, creating a mostly sealed cocoon of my blue and yellow fur.

"You can't hurt me," Keyterayn explained calmly as I squeezed her rectangular pink shell. "This magic weapon protects me from anything you can throw at me. It's never failed."

"Tell me what they did to my sister!" I screamed, igniting my tails and enveloping her little cage in flames, squeezing the force field with as much strength as my strength magic would give me. " **Tell me**!" I roared.

"Oh, I think someone as smart as you could get it," Keyterayn smirked.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

Damn. What the hell had happened to me? I opened my eyes and saw only the table. My face was on it. My mind was blurry as I awoke from unconsciousness. I let myself groan in pain, as my face was screaming at me to do. I didn't see any blood on the table…

I had been attacked.

I jerked in my seat, my mind kicking from low grade to hyperspeed in a millisecond. My hands caught where they were. Positioned so that I could sit up properly, of course. I looked at them as I sat up much more slowly. Metal cuffs were stuck on the table that hadn't been there before, and despite having no obvious connector, they held quite well.

"You wake up quick." I heard.

I looked all the way up, and recoiled. Raina herself had her hands on the table, her arms vertical, and she was leaning forward. She had a smirk on her face. Her claws did not move at all; She wasn't fidgeting in the slightest. Her red eyes pierced mine with a nearly feral look that made me shiver.

"Are you absolutely sure you're a guy?" she asked me teasingly.

I blinked. "What?" I asked.

"Most guys would have a nosebleed by now." She explained casually, keeping that smirk on her face. I blinked again and frowned. She was wearing what she had been before, and yes, I imagine most men would wind up with terrible nosebleeds.

"I **am** a guy." I asserted.

"And most guys get angry when they find they were wrong with something." Raina continued, still in that very exaggerating position.

It started to click in my addled mind. She didn't have any scars. There was only one person who possibly could have attacked me, and she was leaning over the table in front of me. Why had she attacked me? The only possible reason…

Raina was right. I **should** be feeling seriously betrayed right now. But I didn't. Mostly because she hadn't bothered to play the part of the abused little girl even for a moment in the first place. I should have figured out that something was wrong.

She clearly was a part of all of this. Just… How deeply? To what extent? I supposed it didn't matter. No matter how ingrained she was in this situation, we could still convince her to come with us and leave this mess.

So I smiled at her. "You're in good health," I commented. Her smirk disappeared. "Listen-"

Her hand whipped faster than I could possibly have imagined, her claws striking me in the face and throwing my head sideways painfully. I gasped as the stinging on my face registered, and I looked down to see blood dripping on the table.

Raina was back to smirking. "I'm asking the questions here, buster." she chastised me in a far too sultry manner considering the viciousness of her strike. I couldn't speak. Her tone, her personality, her strength… Christy and I had misunderstood **everything**!

I stayed quiet as she straightened and began pacing. "So in case you turn out to be dense, let's start with something simple. What are you and my sister doing here?"

If I wanted Raina to come with us willingly, being honest was still the best policy. "Christy and I… We came to rescue you. We thought you were being tortured, and we wanted to… Bring you home."

Raina paused. I couldn't see her face, as her back was mostly turned to me. "Home, huh?" her voice was impassive. She turned, and her face contorted into that smirk once more. There was something awfully wrong about that smirk. Something bad.

She leaned further against the table and brought her claws to my chin, lifting my face up so that I was looking straight into her eyes. "You're in my home." she declared.

"Something makes me doubt that." I shot back, my eyes narrowing. She raised a brow and flicked the claws that held my chin, cutting through my skin and fur like butter. The wound was not deep, but I still started losing more blood. She was toying with me.

"So what are you?" Raina asked softly as she stared me down. Her tone still held that… Pitch. Like when someone, especially a woman, is trying to appeal to the opposite gender. "To my beloved sister? Mercenary? Or is there some special motive?"

"I'm her friend," I told her flatly. "And she's the best friend I've ever had."

"Hm." Raina's smirk failed to go away. "Wouldn't have guessed." she shrugged, "I suppose it hardly matters anyways."

My eyes narrowed. "Hardly matters?" I asked. "Christy's your **sister**. You haven't seen her in years and neither of us knows what happened to you after you escaped. It matters a lot to Christy, to me, and to you-"

She moved faster than I possibly could have seen it. One slash severed the metal objects holding my wrists in place, and the backhand that followed sent me spinning straight into the wall. I choked as I collapsed onto my hands and knees after falling off of the wall. Blood splattered the floor under my face, and I now had slash marks on both sides of my muzzle. The wounds would probably shrink if I shifted, but I couldn't do that right now.

I felt a jerking sensation at my neck and I found myself being lifted and bashed against the wall by my neck. The back of my head complained from the strike, and when I opened my eyes again, Raina had me held by the neck against the wall, above me. "I thought…" Raina began with her soft and suggestive tone "That **I** was asking the questions?"

"I probably have more questions for you than you have for me." I managed to say, earning a swift jab to my stomach in retribution. I continued anyways, despite bringing my paw up to see blood on it after clutching my stomach. Her claws were ridiculously sharp. "And come on. Even you couldn't make the stereotypical questioning process any less stereotypical and boring." I grinned. "Can you blame me for lightening the mood a bit?"

"I could." Raina nodded, her smirk appearing; I hadn't seen it go away, but… "But it does make things more interesting." she conceded, and brought her face closer to mine. "And it gives me more of a reason to make you bleed," she whispered. "I so love the color red."

I flinched.

"Oh?" she asked. "Big sis told you all about me, didn't she, and you're hanging around, realizing that everything you thought you knew was wrong. What's all that going to do for you now?"

I shook my head. "No, I just thought…" I trailed off for a moment. "I thought you liked a lighter color of red than blood."

She smirked. "Huh," she said, and dropped me to my feet, where I staggered and held the wall to maintain balance while stemming the blood from my stomach. Again, it wasn't as bad as it could be. She was holding back.

"You're going easy on me," I said aloud. She had been about to turn away from me, but looked back.

"Oh, no." she refuted, stepping back up to me. "I just don't want you to die. It's hard to make people scream in pain when they're dead."

I grimaced. "What…" I murmured, but she grabbed me by the face and thrust me to the floor onto my back.

"It hasn't really clicked for you yet, has it, buddy boy?" she asked in that seductive voice. "You thought you knew so much, and it's come crashing down on you in the middle of the enemy compound. Good effort, idiot. Now, you've intentionally thrown yourself into the path of **me**." she got up and walked away from me for three meters.

She turned around. "Me, the head of the torture division," she stated with that awful, awful smirk.

My blood froze. "H-head of?" I asked, slowly scrambling away. "But… But why?"

"Does it really matter all that much?" the girl asked. Her horn glinted, reflecting the light in the ceiling.

"Yes," I replied immediately, pushing myself to my feet and setting my paw on the corner of the table to keep myself steady. "It does."

"Why would you even help her?" Raina asked as if I hadn't responded. She spun the little gold switch-thing on her claw and let it fall into her palm. "I'll bet Christy was way out of either country. You didn't need to go on any sort of adventure when this thing could have paid for what you needed for years."

I didn't answer that. She noticed. "Speechless?" she asked, stepping up and grabbing my wrist even as I attempted to back up, not without fear. She pulled me closer to her. "Good," she whispered, her claws flashing in the reflection of the light as she brought them up even as she carelessly dropped the golden object.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

"How long are you going to try?" Keyterayn asked, her head tilted somewhat. She blinked, and her eye colors swapped again. She leaped backward, her protective walls fading as she slipped through a gap in my tails.

I ran forward, coated in flame, but slammed face first into another wall that popped up. This bitch wouldn't let me leave, which was really bad. A wall appeared behind me as well, and I realized I had just become trapped.

"Oh, Chris." Keyterayn murmured as she stepped forward and the other sides of me got covered by the force field. "She who controls the battlefield controls the battle." she continued with an infuriating smirk. "Just like we control everything. Someone does something that they want to do instead of what's best for the war effort, we crush them. We crush them **hard**."

She leaned forward. "We crush a lot of people," she said. "Your sister is no exception."

I snapped. This girl… " **You** did this to her!?" I shrieked, slamming my fist into the glowing wall. My tails pushed against the fields as I tried to force my way out.

"Oh, a lot of people had a part in it." she girl shrugged. "It was pretty fun, actually. She broke in a few months, but that didn't stop Malvolio. No, the boss decided that that wasn't nearly enough and set us to make her suffer as much as possible. And then, when we were done after years of psychological and physical destruction, and physical healing using painful magical methods, a truly brilliant idea was born."

I could barely breathe as my imagination supplied me with images of what they must have done to her. The floor burst as another energy wall, or energy floor, appeared beneath me and after a ceiling appeared, I was suddenly trapped in a box.

A box that was getting smaller.

Keyterayn laughed. "I found myself enjoying it very much." she freely admitted. "Illusions, everything. The whole compound could hear the results. Other children complained of nightmares sometimes, yadda yadda yadda."

The box shrunk down until I was forcibly curled up, my tails pressed against my back and chest. "You'd make an excellent gift, but it'd be too strange to bother wrapping this box up. You're going straight to the boss, and after your precious sister finds you, you'll see **exactly** how bad it is." Keyterayn promised.

Something inside me just… Snapped. Flames filled the box I was in, the heat not affecting me or my clothes in any way. Energy bursting from me as I pushed against the box she had floating in front of her.

"Don't bother, Chris." the sadistic girl smirked at me. "Nothing breaks those walls, and I control them. I'll gladly use some of my energy to manage this. The boss'll be so pleased to see you, and you aren't escaping this time."

I continued pushing, not speaking, barely even thinking. I just emitted an intense energy as the flames made my box glow a bright orange.

Taikans came in from either side of the corridor, surrounding me. They stared at the black outline that they could see of me through the flames as I trained my eyes on Keyterayn. I had eyes only for her mismatched ones, because if it was the last thing I did, she was going to **lose** them.

 **Crack!**

Keyterayne's smile faltered. "What?" she asked at the hairline fracture that had appeared in her precious pink wall. "That's… That's impossible!" she shrieked.

More cracks appeared as I continued expanding my tails and pressing them outwards, releasing so many flames that the pressure simply was too much for the shields.

Keyterayne and every other taikan than had come to see the 'prisoner', AKA me, were blasted back as my prison exploded and I landed on my feet. Fire released from my body at an intense velocity, rising in a pillar from my position and erupting straight through the roof of the complex. I took one step forward and then a second. I looked down at my hand, which was only partially visible in the flames; Only the black shadow of it was visible, as the rest of me likely was.

" **I came here in search of my sister!** " I roared " **And I just saw her attacking my best friend! Corrupted and tortured by YOU!** "  
Keyterayn began scrambling back as I walked forward, my fire burning everything in sight. " **And when I rush out to stop it, I come across YOU! You, who bragged, fucking bragged about the pain you caused my sister! And there is one thing you really should know about THAT.** "

I brought my tails around me in a threatening array. " **You chose a really, really bad time to piss me off** ," I growled, making my tails lunge forward and wrap around her. The flames burned hot, causing the pitiful girl to scream in agony. I Squeezed my tails together, hearing satisfying cracks that meant the girl's arms or legs were probably broken.

Finally, I threw her as hard as I could into the mass of people running away from me, she crashed through the crowd like a bowling ball, tumbling over and over and into the wall finally. Irreparably damaged, possible irreparable even for magical healing tricks, but still alive. I could tell. I wasn't about to kill her.

The flames slowly died away as I forced myself to calm down. Gabriel was really far away from me and I knew it. I had to go **right now**. "Let me past," I ordered as I started sprinting towards the group of taikans that had somehow not gotten away yet.

I was going to smash everything in my way if it meant saving both Gabriel and Raina.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

"You are **far** too easy to toy around with." Raina claimed, licking my blood from her claws. She'd tossed me, and I'd landed on something hard before sliding away.

I didn't respond. I couldn't .I could hardly breathe after all the punches and slashes I had taken, and she hadn't even asked me any questions for a while. "I mean really, it's kinda lame." the girl continued. She tapped her claw against the metal spike on my chest. "Shame you blunted these, really. It's almost like you didn't **want** to fight back."

"I… Don't…" I managed.

"After I've beaten the crap out of you, you can't be bothered to put up a fight? I haven't even kept you in restraints since I'm **such** a nice girl." Raina rested her head with her knuckles on her cheek from where she sat on the chair I had been in before, her elbows on the table. I was against the wall, sitting. I had to look up to see her.

"I… I don't care," I said, getting my breath back finally. "You're Christy's sister. She needs you... I wouldn't attack you in a million years."

"Adorable." Raina shifted positions so that her palm held her face rather than her knuckles.

"And… Honestly, you're too fast. Trying wouldn't be a good decision unless I really wanted to hurt you. So defending myself's not an option."

"Fair enough."

I frowned at her. "What did they do to you?" I asked once more.

"Not that it's any of your business, but I'll give you a hint." Raina winked at me. "There was magic involved." She chuckled.

I stared at her. This was almost the opposite of what Christy described her sister as. What they did to her changed her so utterly that she was almost unrecognizable compared to the stories.

... **Almost**.

"It's a shame." I murmured aloud. "It hurts to see how much everything-"

"I'm sorry, did I give you permission to speak?" Raina asked, standing up and walking over to me once more. "I don't think so."

"Can you blame me? It's hard not to talk to a girl when they wink at you." I commented. She gave a light, genuine laugh at that. Then, to my confusion, that expression seemed to jolt back into the smirk that screamed 'sadist'.

"Oh, I can blame you for a lot of things," Raina said, leaning over me. "I can blame you for everything, actually. It doesn't matter whether you're guilty, because in the end, if I'm stronger than you, and if I'm faster than you, then your blood will splatter the walls of this room."

"Well, that part's done." I gestured weakly to the bloody marks on two of the walls and the table, and then gestured to the blood that had wound up in Raina's fur.

"Funny guy, huh? Even now?" Raina asked. "What kind of guy are you?"

"We've been over this." I quipped "I **am** a guy, darn it."

She cuffed me roughly at the side of my head, but didn't bother using her claws. "In all these years, I've never had a guy chuckle at me while I cut into his skin. You're trying to mess with me."

"I'm trying to understand you," I admitted. Raina frowned. She brought her hand up to my arm, her claws gleaming.

"I think you understand perfectly." she said in a lower voice.

I smiled at her. I didn't even have to force it. I've been hurt before. I've been a lot closer to death before, cough-stupidly-walking-into-a-snowstorm-and-nearly-getting-killed-but-was-saved-by-Christy-cough. "Not completely." I shrugged. "But I know enough. Enough to know that whatever they did to you to force you to enjoy torturing people, it's not perfect. There's still something left of the girl that saved my best friend's life."

Cliche as hell, I know, but…

She slammed her fist into my already wounded gut, causing me to release all the air I had in me for just a moment. Then, once more, she grabbed me by the neck and hoisted me into the air. "What exactly makes you think that?" she asked.

I smiled. "You still paint."

"Oh, sweetie, don't you know it's bad to sneak into other people's rooms?" Raina pressed her claws against my neck. "So what if I do?"

"They may not be happy paintings, all of them, but there are still happy paintings there." I continued fearlessly. "And the rest still are calming, even if they aren't- **hurk**!"

She slammed me into the ground. "I don't have time for this," she said. I had clearly shaken her somewhat, but whatever they had done to her was taking precedence right now. Now that I was dazed, she easily hung me over her shoulder, letting her horn slice away at my side as she did so, and walked out of the door.

By the time I could get my bearings again, the white-furred girl was tossing me into some sort of box made of blue and purple metals. There was a row of them in this room. "The heck?" I muttered as she shut the door and set her hand on the side of it.

"Can't just drag you to the boss with you spilling blood everywhere," she explained casually. "So we'll just do a little healing."

White energy sizzled in the corners of the trap she had put me in. "Hang on a minute-" was all I could get through before I was enveloped in energy that was pouring straight into my wounds. I couldn't help but shout in agony as the magic version of a rejuvenation chamber forced my wounds to close extremely painfully, not to mention slowly.

I squeezed my eyes shut and started to 'see' using my aura abilities. Raina had her hands on her hips as she watched me shudder and cry out. Five minutes later, she was pulling me, nearly unconscious, out of the thing.

"Ahh." Raina sighed. "Nothing sounds more musical to my ears than someone screaming in pain. I love these things." she patted the machine.

"Welp, come on then." She said, once again holding me up on her shoulder—her other shoulder, so I didn't get cut by her horn again—and started walking. "Dear old Christy's probably gonna barge in and save you soon, so we might as well get you straight to the boss."

I groaned, finding that my arms and legs weren't working properly. "Why's he want **me**?"

"Oh, he couldn't care less about **you** , buddy boy," Raina told me. "But he definitely wants my sister, and considering how you talk about her, she'd move heaven and earth to get to you."

Oh, shit. I needed to move, now. I needed to make my legs work and get out of here, preferably dragging Raina along with me. "Uh…" I muttered, thinking quickly. "Being bait's not exactly my favorite thought ever. Alternatives?"

"I shut you up permanently and then use your **body** as bait." she said, still slightly high-strung after I mentioned her paintings.

I grimaced. I wasn't going to be able to reason with Raina. Maybe Christy could, but she wasn't here right now. I had no choice; I had to stop this now.

I gathered aura flames, and pushed Raina downwards enough for me to collapse onto the hallway floor just before the door to the rest of the compound. Raina blinked and stood up, dusting herself off calmly. "So you do have some capacity for… Anything," she said, amused, and her sultry tone having mostly recovered. My body wasn't responding, but it would eventually. All I would have to do is sustain this flame around me until that happened.

"Nice flames." she complimented, pushing her hand against the flames and being repelled. "Shame they don't burn."

"Actually, I'm perfectly happy with nonlethals," I said. Raina put her hands on her hips again and looked at the flames critically for a while. Then, she slashed at them with her claws.

The flames were blown aside by her claws. My eyes widened. How had she done that? What the hell was she!?

She smirked. "I guess you don't get to be awake when I bring you there after all." she decided, and drew her hand back. I tried to move, tried to do **anything** , but when her left hand slashed away the flames, I could only wait for her right fist to collide with my muzzle.

Everything went black.

* * *

"..."

I woke up slowly, quietly. Moaning and groaning wouldn't do me much good this time around. As far as I understood it, things were about to get really really bad. Raina could get through my flames. That doubt I had seen… She had managed to unveil the weakness of my flames. This was bad, really bad.

My arms felt like they were being strained in multiple directions, as did my legs. I was suspended by something, and it hurt. Like energy was traveling through my arms. The rest of my body felt okay, probably because of that healing box thing that Raina used. She probably used that thing all the time when she tortured people, and it had actually been more painful than everything Raina had thrown at me.

But I knew I could help her a little, at least. When I caused her to feel the slightest doubt, she got much more stressed and her tone changed into something closer to seriousness. It may be dangerous, even fatal to try, but I might as well.

"It's not nice to tease us, buddy boy~" I heard. So Raina could tell I was awake. She may not have magical power, but she was smart, strong, and fast.

"Eh… Fine." I grumbled, opening my eyes. "And I was hoping to overhear cliche bad guy plans doing this, too. You're no fun, Raina."

She just put her hands on her hips and smirked at me.

Then another person stepped into my field of view before I could really grasp the situation I was in. He was an adult, perhaps twenty-five, and was a white wolf. His hands were behind his back and crossed, and his eyes were blue.

"Hello, boy," he said in a near growl. "My name is Malvolio Kaeser."

Well, that's bad. I hoped not to cross paths with him. Instead of answering him, I turned my head left and right, and saw that my arms and legs were encased in these pink colored… Things. They were connected to the back corners of the room by actual energy beams, and whatever residual energy was resulting from these things was going straight into my system and it **hurt**. From my elbows and knees down those traps were stuck on me, pulling mt limbs in all directions and effectively trapping me.

I tried to use my aura flames from my tail, as I knew to do, but… Nothing happened.

"That is a useless attempt, unique," Malvolio informed me darkly. "I have constructed a magic-negating system around your tail."

I frowned, searching the area with my aura senses. It was extremely hard to see, because I seemed to have a dark spot in those senses. Around the bottom half of my body and at my arms, I couldn't sense much but simple faint outlines. I could see an odd system of floating pieces of metal around my tail, however. I couldn't get a good look at the object's design.

I frowned deeper. I didn't **use** magic. I used aura. Perhaps this system also cut aura energy off? Well, that was certainly convenient for Malvolio, and definitely accidental.

Well, I had to get out of here, punch this asshole in the face, and talk to Raina, so my best bet was to reveal that I could use my flames from other parts of my body. I tried to release as many flames as I could, but the dark spot for aura ended only around my chest and head.

And then I launched the cobalt blue fireball straight at Malvolio.

"So it is true. You do not need to use your tail for this magic." Malvolio mused, not bothering to move. I realized what this meant the second before the flames struck. The blasted straight through the white wolf, who wasn't budged. It was as if he wasn't even there, and the flames splashed against the floor and wall before fading away. "Much like Christy." he continued. "Her fury is a sight to behold. Raina?"

"Yes, sir." Raina turned and produced one of those viewing rings from a little opening in the metal counter that was opposite me. She set it on the wall in an appropriate place, and it rippled. It showed some weird feline taikan starting to crush Christy in a box of pink energy. My eyes widened as I heard the girl gloating. So Raina was tortured for a time, before this happened to her and she became the head of the department…

And then I saw Christy blast it apart. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The flames erupted from her entire body in a pillar of orange and red, the only thing visible of her body was the black shadow that showed maybe half of her, and the image seemed to be violently flickering in the flame. The image was utterly terrifying.

" **You chose a really, really bad time to piss me off,** " Christy growled, before totally tearing the shield wall person apart with her flames and throwing her away, tumbling down the hall. Then the ring changed, and showed that the portion of the roof was blown off, and the edges were straight up melted.

"Her potential is incredible." Malvolio murmured. "Far more than I ever dreamed. This war is mine!"

He turned to me. "And we both know that she will come running to save her dearest sister and her best friend," he grinned grotesquely.

"Christy isn't stupid, Malvolio," I told him confidently. "I'm the only one you have captive. When it comes down to it, all she needs to do is take you down, even if you can kill me with this death trap first. Then, she'll grab her sister whether Raina wants to or not, and they're going to escape. You've managed to piss off a pacifist, Malvolio. Never a good idea."

"We shall see." the white wolf taikan disagreed, turning to the counter. He traced his finger along some sliding metal objects, and the voltage suddenly increased by a lot. I gave a shout of pain as a pink energy raced across my body, lasting long enough to make me feel very disoriented and in pain. Then he let up, and my head dropped to my chest as I couldn't move even those muscles for a while. Thankfully, my heart kept ticking. I wondered how much energy it would take to stop that particular muscle.

"Feeling a bit numb?" Raina asked. "It's the same kind of energy as the healing unit, but we messed with it a bit. Now it causes pain and temporarily shuts down muscles. Or permanently, if the boss gets tired of you."

"..." Darn it, why wasn't my mouth moving? Oh wait, there we go. "Ow," I muttered.

She frowned. "That's all you have? Ow?" she asked, disappointed. "You've been a comedy to talk to constantly, and now what? Ow? Lame."

"Don't blame me, blame the guy with the energy magic-technology mix thing there." I gestured to Malvolio with my head. "He doesn't seem to have a sense of humor, so I can't get away with as much."  
Raina turned a pouting expression on Malvolio.

"Stand down, girl." Malvolio spat. Raina quickly nodded and stepped back, resting on the counter with a more blank expression on her face. I couldn't see one of those bands on Malvolio's arm or anything, so that wasn't how he was controlling Raina. How then? Was it something more simple?

"So I was wondering-Ow!" I exclaimed as the guy quickly zapped me again. "Not nice!"

"You will be quiet," he ordered. "Until your little friend gets here."

"She is getting closer," Raina commented. "I can hear her breaking things."

I tuned in with my own ears. Raina was right. I could hear doors being smashed open nearby. "It's nearly time." Malvolio decided, resting his palm on a—wait for it—great big threatening button. He didn't push it just yet. Considering it was nearby the little sliding tools on the counter thing, I had no doubt what it would do. Nearly instantaneous, painful death.

Christy grew closer, and then the door dented. Something heavy had slammed into it. Then, through the holes the door had left, two of her tails snaked through the sides, wrapped around the dented piece of metal, and yanked it back into the hallway. My breathing was still a bit labored, so it was a mistake to inhale deeply when I saw the ferocity with which the door disappeared. I couldn't see very far in, because the door was to the side of me.

Christy skidded into the room, her tails blazing. Despite the fact that she had been covered in fire, her jumpsuit seemed to be perfectly fine. Thankfully. I didn't need my last moments to involve nosebleeds.

Even as I thought that, the severity of the situation started to weigh on my neck. Malvolio had a plan, and it was going to involve my death. Here I was, trying to be funny. Silently, in my own head. Being funny was for fooling others… So why was I bothering to try fooling myself? Or had I grown so accustomed to this thought, this idea that I probably wasn't going to come out alive in the first place, that I really could joke about it?

She saw Raina first, as her sister was leaning back against the counter with her arms vertically on the edge of the counter. Christy stared at her sister. Raina kept her flirtatious smirk up. "...Raina…" Christy whispered. She stared at the unique taikan for a full minute, just taking in that she was **here**.

"Hey, sis." Raina finally responded, waving cheerily. "Look what we caught!"

Christy looked where her sister was pointing. At me. Her eyes widened even as I gave a weak, sheepish smile.

"Gabriel," she said. "So my sister dragged you here?"

"More like carried." both Raina and I said at once. "Though she did punch me right in the muzzle." I shot Raina a look."

"Your flames were irritating." Raina shrugged carelessly. Then a strange expression crossed her face for an instant. Good. That was doubt I saw. It may take some work, but she probably could be fixed right up.

Then Christy registered the remaining man in the room. " **Malvolio**!" she shrieked, her flaming pillar erupting anew as her tails spread out around her in a semicircle of arched limbs, in her typical defense and offense position.

She was probably about to burn him into a pile of ash. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," Malvolio said calmly. Christy kept building energy, though, and her tails started reaching for the man. "Stop," he ordered. "With a press of this button, your precious 'Gabriel' dies instantly."

Christy somehow managed to register that through the roar of her flames. She stepped back quickly, panicked, but didn't say a word.

"Good girl." the wolf taikan laughed harshly. "His flames are useless, and I can easily keep my eye on you from here. Stay there, in fact. Don't move from that spot."

Christy flinched and stayed put. "What do you mean his flames are useless?" she asked carefully, looking at me. I grimaced.

"Oh, your friend didn't tell you?" Malvolio asked with a raised brow. "His flames don't actually exist."

Christy gave him a deadpan stare.

"Meaning," Malvolio continued, "That the flames only affect someone if they believe the flames will. If you know they're fake, they pass right through you without so much as even a temperature difference."

" _And now that Christy knows that, I can't use my flames to lift her at all if I need to."_ I thought, grimacing. " _Unless…"_

Christy gritted her teeth. "He didn't tell me that because we needed the flames to be able to affect me at times," she said. "He would have trusted me with the information otherwise."

"Oh, I know." Malvolio waved his free hand in a careless gesture. "I simply thought it would be… Enlightening… To share. Particularly since he won't be able to stop you using his flames."

"Stop me from what?" Christy asked, an edge to her voice. She kept her eyes on the button and how close Malvolio's hand was to it.

"Stop you from handing your will over to me." Malvolio extended his unoccupied hand towards Christy. She stiffened, and I couldn't help but cry out in surprise and realization. I started shivering. He was talking about the innocent looking band around her neck. He wanted full control of Christy. Permanent control.

Raina's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.

Christy looked the horrid man in the eye. "Will you let Gabriel live if I do this?" she asked immediately.

"No!" I exclaimed loudly, startling her and Malvolio alike. They looked at me in unison. "Christy, that's ridiculous! Don't you dare give away your life for mine!"

I looked desperately at Christy, trying to stop her from doing something so immensely stupid.

"But of course," Malvolio claimed. "I will let him go. I only need him for you, after all."

Christy started to move her hands upwards.

"Don't be stupid!" I screamed desperately "You have all sorts of things to live for!"

She halted again and looked at me. I needed her to stop this now. I needed her to grab her sister and run away. "You have your sister! You built a life and everything for yourself!" I rambled "You can help others if you find them, and what do I have? No family, no other friends, and a single person who was forced to ditch me because of his immense responsibility! I have nothing, and you have everything you need! You just need to attack him and grab your sister and go!"

"I will spare him," Malvolio said simply. Christy's eyes were wide and glistening with tears now. I knew why. I was asking for her to directly sacrifice me, and she couldn't handle it. This was my fault, I reflected. I grew attached to her, and now look at us. She was in such conflict, such turmoil, that it hurt to watch.

"Please… Don't…" I pleaded slowly.

Christy squeezed her eyes shut, her body tense. I watched in horror as she brought her hands up to the band around her neck. "Christy, stop!" I explained as she began pulling on it. It stretched in her hands as she prepared to pull her very will off of her. "Christy!" I practically screamed "He's going to kill me anyways! We both know it!"

Christy paused again. I sighed with relief as she let it rest against her neck once more. "We both know that," I whispered. "We both know that he's going to kill me."

"I will let him live if you give me your will." Malvolio insisted evenly, his voice unwavering.

Christy lowered her head. I thought she was going to do it. I thought she was going to make the choice I wanted her to make, to let me die and save her sister. She had to be strong enough for this.

"...Gabriel…" She whispered. I barely caught it. "I can't."

My eyes widened. "You have to let me die, Christy!" I exclaimed.

Christy's eyes had shadowed over. "And what if you're wrong, Gabe?" she asked softly. "What if there is the slightest chance he actually lets you live? I can't… I can't throw that chance away."

"This is ridiculous, Christy!" I screamed.

She didn't heed my words. Her hands found the band around her neck once more. "Even as I tried moving my arms and legs, which wouldn't respond, she pulled at her band again. I needed to stop her right now. I caused flames to fly from me, roaring towards her as I manipulated them to try and move her arms away from her band.

They passed through her like they didn't exist. Malvolio smirked for just a moment, and then the expression turned serious before Christy could notice. I sent my flames whirling around her in a vicious cyclone, trying to save her from her own ridiculous sentiments.

Unhindered, she stretched the band around her neck further. She was moving very slowly, as if hesitating.

"Christy, stop, please!" I roared. " **Don't you dare throw away your life**!"

She pulled it off, pulling her blue hair free from the band and holding it in front of her. Its runes glowed yellow along the outlines and jet black in the middle. I was crying now. She really thought she could save me by doing this, and none of my words meant anything. My flames did nothing, my strong muscles didn't move. I was **useless** , and now, Christy was going to pay for it for as long as Malvolio kept her alive.

"Stay there, and toss it," Malvolio ordered, not taking any chances. Christy hesitated once more, but she gave me one more look and tossed the band straight to the wolf. He caught it easily with one hand, and there was a moment of stillness, of silence.

"Hey, boss," Raina spoke up. "Maybe it would be best to control her using dog boy over here as a hostage instead of the band."

"Ridiculous," Malvolio replied immediately. "And I understand what you are doing." He flipped the band over his wrist and let go of it, letting it fall onto his arm. This allowed him to put it on without releasing his hand from the button. The band shrunk and tightened around his arm and continued to glow. He looked Christy in the eye. "You will not attack me," he said evenly, and took his hand away from the button.

Once it was safely away, Christy took action. She shot her tails forward, blazing, perhaps trying to do something, but then they stopped. Christy gasped, as her tails started shivering in place. They wouldn't go any closer to the man.

'You will not attack me', Malvolio had said. Christy's tails shrank back to their normal size. The wolf drew his hand out towards the button once more, and I closed my eyes. "No!" Christy screamed.

There was a small clicking sound, but I hadn't died. I searched with my senses, and found that Malvolio had actually flipped the glass case over the button shut. My eyes shot open, just as the whirring of the items on my arms powered down and just let me drop out of them.

I landed on my chest, my body paralyzed, likely for a little while. I looked up, unable to stop the tears coming from my eyes. "You shouldn't have done that…" I whispered weakly. I would never forgive myself if I left. There was no way I was going to just leave while Christy was forced into this. I would rather die than see Christy enslaved.

Malvolio turned to Raina. "And as for you…" he said darkly. "I caught that. You are overstepping your boundaries."

"I know, sir." Raina stood absolutely still.

"This is why basic brainwashing is pitifully inadequate," Malvolio growled. "Stay there. I will deal with you later."

"Yes, sir," Raina said blankly. Whenever Malvolio gave her an order, that sadism and probably perverted personality faded away immediately. My heart clenched. I had failed the both of them, and even with my body beginning to move… I couldn't attack. Malvolio would make Christy take the hit for him.

"Please…" Christy murmured. "Let me say goodbye to Gabriel, and… I want to spend time with my sister."

Malvolio gave her an even, expressionless look. He turned to me as I managed to get to my paws and knees, while I was glaring at him. "There will be a goodbye," he said. "Grab him."

I stiffened, and Christy cried out as four of her tails shot forward, straight at me. "No!" she said as her tails wrapped around my wrists and ankles and yanked me into much the same position that I had been in within that torture device I had landed myself in earlier. I couldn't help but meet Christy's eyes.

"You said you wouldn't harm him!" Christy screamed, "That you would let him live!"

" **I** won't be laying a finger on him," Malvolio stated, making some distance between himself and me. "You two, however, have been a thorn in my side for a long time. I do not have any qualms about letting you watch as you tear your friend apart."

"You're **sick**!" Christy exclaimed, fire starting to billow from her unused two tails. They enveloped her body. She made to launch a massive fireball, but she couldn't complete the motion to do so. Her body just stopped and her flames died out, leaving her shivering where she stood.

"Christy…" I murmured. "I want you to know-..."

The door opened, interrupting everything. Her fur was messy, but she looked otherwise fine. Her trident slammed into the ground as she stopped. Armalita stood stock still, staring at Christy as she held me up in the air. Her eyes tracked over everything, including Malvolio. Specifically, the band that had tightened itself on his arm. She got all of us staring at her.

As soon as she saw the band, her expression hardened. She hadn't even reacted to Christy's presence. Had she figured it out while she fought me? "Explain this, Malvolio," she said sternly.

"Begone, Armalita," Malvolio ordered. "This is not of your concern."

"On the contrary." she stepped forward. "This boy defeated me in battle." she pointed at me, leaving me to wonder if she recalled that we were about the same age. "And that used to be my good friend." she pointed at Christy "And her sister is standing to the side and not being involved, which is very strange behavior for her. I believe it is very much my business."

"Stand down!" the wolf barked.

"Sir, with all due respect-"

"I said. Stand. Down." Malvolio growled.

Armalita narrowed her eyes. "There is no honor in this, forcing someone to do something against their will."

Malvolio straightened, staring straight into Armalita's gaze. "Strike her," he said evenly. I gasped as Armalita wasn't prepared for one of Christy's remaining tails to instantly obey the command and slam the blue wolf taikan straight in the midsection and against the metal wall of the room, where she collapsed with her arms held against her stomach.

"Armalita!" Christy shrieked, running over to her. Her tails didn't stop holding me in place, but she could still move. "Are you okay?" she asked, quieter.

"It's… nice to see you, Christy," she replied slowly. "Honestly, I was barely standing after I awoke from my defeat from Gabriel. I'm losing consciousness again."

"Armalita…" Christy murmured.

"If I'd known it was you your friend came with, I might have been much more cooperative, even if it meant disobeying orders." Armalita went on. "I'm sorry I came too late, Christy."

She reached for her waist, and pulled something off of it. "I believe this is yours, Christy?" she asked, holding up our golden switch. "I found it while I was searching the Prosecutor's favorite room."

"...Thank you, Armalita." Christy said, neglecting to mention the uselessness of the item. Armalita then lost consciousness again, the poor girl. She was breathing fine. She would live. She might even wake soon.

"What is that?" Malvolio asked as Christy stood up again.

"Just a gift I got a long time ago." Christy murmured.

"Hand it over."

Christy's body instantly moved to obey. She walked up to Malvolio and set the item in the man's open hand roughly. It seemed she could add force to something if she wanted to. "And be gentle whenever I tell you to hand something to me," he added, instantly negating that possible advantage.

The man stepped away from Christy. "A single switch with odd lettering," he muttered. "And you say it does absolutely nothing? Tell the truth."

"We've never seen it do a thing and have flipped it multiple times. We think it has some specific purpose and so have been carrying it around." Christy answered the instant Malvolio gave the order, and then clapped her hands over her muzzle with a shocked expression on her face.

"Indeed?" Malvolio asked, eyeing the gold object intently. "In the hope that it may magically do something in some special place?"

If he wasn't the biggest piece of filth this side of the planet, I would have thought the curious expression he had humanized him somewhat. That curiosity prompted the man to flip the switch once.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

"Now." Malvolio looked at Gabriel with a critical eye. "I want to know all about you."

"Have fun trying to get information out of me," he replied did his best to shrug with my tails pulling at him from four different directions. "I don't know why you'd want to know, anyways. It's not like it's going to matter."

"On the contrary," Malvolio smiled. "It may give me an inkling of who may have been offering our six-tailed fox refuge. And did I ever say I wanted it from **you**?"

He turned to me, and I backed up a step, shivering. I wanted all of this to end. I wanted this nightmare to be over. I'd caused this. I'd thought there was a chance that Malvolio would let Gabriel live, and I had been mistaken. But he'd sadistically given me hope and then went ahead and decided to make me do it. I had been so incredibly foolish because I couldn't handle the thought of Gabriel dying.

Gabriel's tears had made it all the worse for me. It took so much to make him cry. He didn't even cry when he tried to convince me to stop by talking about how much I had going for me when he had no family or friends. He was wrong. I was his family, his friend, but… That was his point. I threw away my life to save his, and we both knew deep down that it wouldn't work. And I had tried anyways.

I saw what was coming the moment Malvolio opened his mouth in my direction. "Tell me everything about your friend here," he ordered, and I felt my own mouth open immediately in response. I tried to cover my mouth, maybe mute the sound, but my hands wouldn't move enough to cover my mouth.

Starting to cry again, I began to speak: "I-I met Gabriel when I was walking out in a snowstorm a distance from the home that I made for myself. He'd collapsed in the cold, and I carried him back into my home and did my best to warm him up and help him dry off. He woke up and snuck around for a while because he wasn't sure about where he was. I knew because he made too much noise when he accidentally opened my door when I was dressing for the day when he scrambled away. I checked on him once I was dressed and discovered he had a lot of stuff he hadn't before and I learned that he was a prokopian."

Gabriel and Malvolio both took a sharp intake of breath at that time. Gabriel didn't show the slightest hint of betrayal. That was part of why I trusted him. He understood what was happening when it happened.

"He and I spoke for a while with caution, but he quickly warmed up to me and he wasn't threatening to me or anything. He was always really kind and helpful to me, and he's always been really funny and great to be around. We lived together for months, and he never complained about boredom while we were snowed in. He comforted me when I revealed that I thought my sister was dead, and he made the effort to be as understanding as he could. The times I checked his mind with my mind magic, he never harbored any ill will towards me at any time. He's a pacifist like I am, a runaway from his country just like I ran from mine."

I was allowed a moment to breathe, which I don't know if Malvolio caused that so that his precious weapon didn't asphyxiate or if the magic did allow for self-preservation motions. "W-when we went to the nearest town to buy supplies for things, Gabriel offered to go and do what I normally would and ask after my sister in the bar, and he told me what he heard. We thought… We thought she was still being tortured to this day. And when I was ready to rush this place and burn everything in sight, Gabriel managed to calm me down and he begged me to act reasonably."

I got to breathe again. "Even when I told him that he could go back home and let me do this by myself, he still decided to come. He refused to let me risk my life without him by my side. He wanted to protect me. He and I traveled for miles from town to town, and even when we had life-threatening situations, Gabriel helped us get out through reasoning instead of fighting. He was clever, and when we worked together, we got out of impossible situations with loopholes.

I took one more breath. "We're the perfect team, and I would give anything for him without question, and he would do the same for me. Neither of us want to fight. We just wanted to bring my sister back home."

I gasped for breath, finally managing to cover my muzzle with my hands. I was still shivering. My eyes squeezed shut and I had wound up on my knees. It was over. Everything was over now. I didn't bother to stop the tears that leaked from my eyes.

"A prokopian? Managing to find his way into the middle of the compound?" he asked, ignoring my state and stepping up to Gabriel. I opened my eyes and saw that his expression was very… Accepting. I broke down. That expression might have been the most painful expression I've ever seen, even if Gabriel didn't seem to be experiencing so much pain.

"Tell me, can your strength overcome the metal in his body?" Malvolio asked.

"I don't know." I was forced to answer.

"I have the impulse… To make you suffer for making me wait for you for eleven years." Malvolio decided. "Rip your friend apart."

"No!" I shouted even as my muscles moved to make my tail try and pull at him from all directions. I was pulling harder and harder, as he yelped from the initial pain.

But he calmed soon enough. Even if he groaned from the constant strain on his arms and legs, he looked me in the eye. "Christy," he called. My ears flicked as I forced myself to meet his eyes. "I'm not going to attack you with my more physical attacks. You know that."

I choked. Why was he telling me this?

"If there's one thing I learned about you, it's that when you believe something is true, you will follow it and try your hardest to make it happen. You trust yourself to do the right thing. You bring yourself to complete the jobs you take on, to accomplish what people might find impossible for someone without your ability." Gabriel continued, flames enveloping his form and passing through my tails like they did not exist. I grimaced, remembering Malvolio's words. I realized his flames didn't exist, so now they weren't affecting me. He couldn't escape that way.

He grunted again as I started pulling harder. "You trust yourself to learn how to do something. You taught yourself to cook by yourself for years. You taught yourself how to build mechanical things, how to put together mixtures of technology and magic like your television, or how to build and create. You trust yourself, because you make yourself believe you can."

He smiled at me. "You make yourself believe that you can do whatever you need to do to get by, and that's why I respect you. You can be kind, and funny, and easy to get along with, but if you need to protect someone, you can be ferocious and powerful and calculative, because you make yourself believe that you can do those things."

He closed his eyes. "And that's only a fraction of what makes you so special," he whispered.

"Why are you telling me this!?" I shouted, running to him finally. My tails still acted to pull him apart if I could, but the rest of me was trying to get him out of there. "Please, just…" I trailed off. Gabriel had a **smile** on his face. "I can't 'believe' myself out of this, Gabriel!" I barked "There's no way out of this!"

He opened his eyes and met mine. "I don't believe that," he said softly, far too softly for Malvolio or Raina to hear. He believed that I could just 'believe' my way out of this? What on earth could he possibly be trying to say!?

I started pulling at him harder and harder, as his grunts of pain turned into open-mouthed shouts. My mind was moving at a million miles per hour, trying to understand what he was talking about. Making myself believe that I could do things? Why did he repeat that over and over? Why!?

And then a memory surfaced.

" _Oh, your friend didn't tell you?" Malvolio asked with a raised brow. "His flames don't actually exist."_

 _I gave him a deadpan stare._

" _Meaning," Malvolio continued, "That the flames only affect someone if they believe the flames will. If you know they're fake, they pass right through you without so much as even a temperature difference."_

If I **believe** the flames will affect me, then they will. But I **didn't** believe that anymore, so what gives? Except… Gabriel had told me that one of the things he respected about me was that I could make myself believe something. I don't actually believe that was true. I don't make myself believe something. I believe it because I have reason to. Gabriel said it wrong on purpose, because of that.

"You can accept things!" Gabriel shouted. "That's another thing I admire about you! You accepted me, even though I'm a prokopian! You accepted everything I told you about my past, no matter how outlandish it seemed! Gah!"

I had taken too long, and he had chosen to say something else to try and help me understand without alerting Malvolio or my sister. Accepting? It wasn't just making myself believe, but accepting?

He was telling me that I could **accept** that the flames would affect me, and believe **that**. Oh, you clever jackal, you, Gabriel.

I looked at the fire flying through my tail that held his left wrist. It didn't burn, it wasn't affecting me. I knew his flames didn't burn. They were more for moving things around physically. And they **did** move things around physically.

They could affect my tails too. I accepted that.

I was still pulling on Gabriel. I glared at my tail. I accepted that. I believed that I accepted that. I wanted it more than anything in the world.

Nothing.

I almost gave up. But Gabriel meeting my eyes with his strong expression even while he endured the pain I was causing him rekindled that fire, actual fire, in my heart. "I accept," I said aloud. " _Your flames affect me."_ I thought " _Because I want them to and I need them to and they just_ _ **do**_ _!"_

My tails lightened their grip somewhat as they were slightly pushed, I could see it, and feel it. Malvolio hadn't seen my grip lighten, but he had heard me. "You accept what?" he asked. "Tell me!"

I tensed as his order took hold and my mouth opened, but I mentally grinned, because I could definitely use my words properly even while following orders. "I accept that your aura flames affect me!" I shouted, both obeying Malvolio and satisfying my need to prove to myself that I believed it. That I **chose** to believe it.

My tails were blasted away from Gabriel, and I was pushed back as his fire flared out, managing to land on my feet. My tails, still beyond my control, rushed forward and wrapped around the fire and tried to squeeze through.

Malvolio could command my body, but he couldn't command my mind.

"What the hell is this!?" the man asked.

"This is me saving Gabriel," I answered instantly. I hadn't needed to answer that time, but **damn,** the look on his face was priceless.

Gabriel stood up slowly, his glare fixed on the white wolf taikan. "You've done a lot of things," he growled. "You've dragged this pointless war on. You've directly caused the deaths of hundreds, possibly thousands. You've destroyed people."

"You've run horrible experiments, brainwashing, for one, and that's not to mention the mentions of aspect fusing and Intentionally causing amnesia I glimpsed in the papers." I continued.

"But right here right now, I'm going to beat the living crap out of you," Gabriel promised. "For what you did to everyone, including Raina, and Christy, and now even Armalita."

Malvolio backed up a step, but then seemed to remember his position. "Christy, you will defend me with your life!" he shouted. Before I could even hope to realize the implications of that, I had darted right in between Malvolio and Gabriel, facing him in a fighting position and my tails threateningly arched towards him in a semicircle.

I smiled at him. "Do what you have to," I told him. "I don't care. Smack me around if you have to."

"I won't kill you, Christy. I can promise that." Gabriel adopted a low stance with his palms outstretched in front of him and behind him. With his left knee bent and his right leg mostly straight, so he was in a kind of fighting position that I didn't recognize. "But I am going to free you. Nothing will stop me from freeing you!"

His eyes flashed. "Even you."

I smiled. Tears fell from my eyes. "Thank you, Gabriel." I murmured.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my still beloved yet very much different sister playing with our golden switch.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

"Kill him!" Malvolio ordered, and my best friend was forced to charge at me.

* * *

 **Yep. That happened. All of it. Also, cliffhanger number two!**

 **So things got a little serious, and because Christy couldn't bear to see Gabriel die and thus ignored reasonable advice, and because Gabriel and Christy could still work together as a team like they had always done, there's a chance to escape.**

 **Now, I'm super paranoid as to whether I portrayed Raina the way I meant to. She's super complicated, so I had to really give it some thought. Ignore how I wrote this all in two days when I said I gave it some thought, because I did try. Excitement is a great motivator.**

 **But instead of continuing to give an overview, I'll go ahead and ask you guys to review and inform me on how you feel about this chapter. I appreciate it, because this is one of the most critical chapters, along with the one coming up, and I think you all know what's coming next. By the way, does Christy scare you yet? Just thought I'd ask.**

 **Thank you all, and have a pleasant day.**


	9. Chapter Nine

**Muahaha! You all thought you were getting a TAC2 chapter today!**

 **Okay, though, seriously. Doing that latest cliffhanger killed me more than it might have killed you guys, and I had to wrap it up and drive things in the next direction. So muahaha and all that. I'm going to force down some of the growing evil building in my heart and mine as I mislead my loyal readers and try to be a bit better about it.**

 **So welcome to chapter nine, the battle between Christy and Gabriel and the aftermath. I can't make battles go ten thousand words long, and as you guys can see, this chapter is wordier than ten thousand words. It's time for reviews, so let's go for it.**

 **Thank you, What Lies Beyond, for reviewing. I don't know everything about Frost, so I don't know how Christy compares to her in battle, but as long as she's not angry... Raina's issue was intentionally hinted at, so that people's reactions to that scene would be varied based on how much they remembered from the rest of the story.**

 **One thing you have to remember, Phillip Harbindinger, is that Gabriel's aura flames have other limitations as well, such as starting to drain him when they received a lot of force, or select other things such as picking himself up with them using something or someone else. As for the rest, you'll have to wait and see.**

 **Silva Fox14, glad you were able to join us. Ps, curse me and my cliffhangers... Yeah, that sounds about right. As for brainwashing... That's complicated. Very complicated.**

 **Yikes, Okay West. Have fun with the dark personality shift thing. I am glad that you like Raina's portrayal. I know Jango is affecting me negatively. Ugh... I'm glad Amber led him somewhere today to keep him from me.**

 **I am glad that you like the story so far, Boss Salamence. Thank you for your compliments on chapter two. I hope you continue to enjoy this story as we go on.**

 **Yes, the acceptance part was to demonstrate how much the two trust each other, Twistedmoonlight. I hope you enjoyed your springtime, because it's time for another chapter.**

 **And AGuyWithNoSkills. I have to say, I am very happy. This is a great review here, so you don't need to think you haven't done it well. The only thing that I found was missing was constructive criticism. Instead, it's all positive. Yet, it's the HELPFUL kind of positive. Part of what makes a great review for me to see is describing what you felt or how you reacted to the important parts of a story. What this does is tell me how all of my reviewers react, and I judge my own work based on what I was attempting to make the readers feel.**

 **Although, I must correct you on something. Christy's band does not prevent brainwashing. She explained it in a previous chapter and it'll have more of an explanation in the near future. It's far more complicated and solid than brainwashing, hence why Malvolio stated that brainwashing was inferior with so much venom in his voice. But it's all right to have a misconception about something.**

 **And I'm trying to stop being evil... And let's start with something I forgot. I forgot to comment on a certain portion of your review to chapter seven, which is a shame because that portion really gave me something to think about. I am of course talking about your comment regarding how Gabriel recovered quickly from being drunk via Sandra's magic. It's an interesting question, and one that made me realize that I hadn't put enough thought, or rather, time, into how Gabriel reacted to it. But, despite not having planned an explanation, let's give this a shot. Maybe his typing reacts to the alcohol like poison, but less so. This si convenient because it means he's not totally immune, but it also lets me give the idea that, based on what I think being drunk would be like, I do kind of consider it poison in a way. Another option is that his animal form simply clears it out of his system faster than his human form, which would make sense because the human body is kind of fragile in comparison to a pokemon's body. Those are some of my weak attempts at justification for not having planned an explanation for how he recovered so quickly. I don't know how hangovers work anyways, so whatever.**

 **That's it for reviews. Thank you for joining me, and I hope you enjoy. Read on!**

* * *

 **Chapter Nine: Flames of Trust**

Funny thing. Friends normally fight in a sparring session, if their lives revolve around fighting. Interestingly, this is the most common type of friendly combat. Not lethal, etcetera etcetera.

If battles between friends aren't just sparring, and the attacks are meant to kill, there's usually some sort of betrayal involved, or marking the end of a friendship, or at least one friend trying to stop the one who went down the wrong path and needed help getting back to who they used to be.

This… Wasn't like that.

I leaped out of the way as Christy smashed a section of the floor with her tails, attacking as powerfully as she could. Having elongated them, she did quite a bit of damage. She was trying to kill me as quickly and powerfully as possible.

And yet… She **wasn't** trying to kill me as quickly and powerfully as possible.

With international asshole champion over at his side of the room and the physical embodiment of Christy's will firmly on his arm, Christy was bound to his orders, and yet fully conscious. So after he told my best friend to kill me, her body leapt into action.

I would have to fight back to get anywhere.

Problem was, this was a way too tight space for me to be fighting **Christy** , as her tails just kept elongating and whipping about and spraying fire everywhere. I needed a more open space to distract her.

I emitted a large amount of aura flames, the blue clashing with the orange and red, and quickly enveloped Christy. I attempted to keep her tails under control, and for a moment, it felt like it was working. Her tails were being forced back near her. Unfortunately, I began to feel a drain of energy as she pushed against my flames with astonishing power. I released her quickly, recognizing that holding her would be too taxing in the long run and I couldn't keep it up if I started focusing on Malvolio. No, I needed to lead Christy away and then rush back and beat the snot out of the white wolf taikan.

Raina was absolutely **no** help. She was content spinning that golden switch thing on her claw and generally entertaining herself. I was kind of glad, honestly. If she wound up fighting at my side, she'd likely put nasty wounds in the both of us. If she fought at Christy's side, that would be straight up dangerous because of all the fire around my favorite kitsune that **burned** , unlike mine.

"Yikes!" I yelped as I ducked another tail swipe. "Okay, Christy, that one could have hurt somebody!"

"Gabriel!" Christy protested with a shocked expression as I joked around even as I dodged.

"Sorry, sorry, not the time." I yelled back "Hey, could you manage to redirect some of that fire to the ceiling?"

"No!"

I continued running, gathering an aura sphere within my paws. I thrust it at the ceiling somewhere in between the both of us and watched it detonate.

I released a burst of aura flames to knock Christy's tails away again, and, sensing that the roof had indeed been blasted open, I ran and leaped through the hole and out of the building.

I ran for about twenty meters and skidded to a stop, finally shifting forms again in broad daylight. Oh, how good it felt. Now that the leader of this country knew about me because he had forced Christy to tell him, there wasn't any point in faking that I was a taikan right now.

There was a huge burst of fire that turned my small hole in the roof into a very large one, and Christy leapt out and landed on the ground. She was still coated in fire, although she wasn't in that terrifying rage state that she had kicked that other taikan to the curb with. I would be worried if she had that. No, she was just on fire.

I leapt away again, backward, to avoid one of Christy's tails. "Do you know how happy I am that your fire is mysteriously not burning away your clothes?" I asked.

"Gabriel!" Christy protested in exactly the same tone as she had done before. I grinned and pointed my bow at her, the cylinder of aura fire appearing as it should do. I shot the attack straight at Christy, which hit her dead center in the chest. The energy burst, sending her flying quite a distance.

Thinking I should end this quickly, I jumped back into the hole and advanced on Malvolio at a run, a full powered aura sphere between my paws. I heard something loud cracking above where we had been, and I felt something catch my arm and make my miss my target by inches. The counter with the device controls was obliterated, but Malvolio was perfectly fine.

I, however, got yanked back by the shoulder by one of Christy's tails and smashed into the ground on the opposite side of her. "Ow!" I barked "Not nice!"

"Sorry!" Christy returned, her covering her mouth as she gasped.

I unleashed another blue fire nova around me to knock her tail away and then jumped onto the roof and bolted again. I really needed to increase the distance here. Closing my eyes and using my aura senses, I had a much better time running and parkouring across the uneven rooftops of the compound.

I felt something, and my eyes shot open. What on earth was I seeing in my aura senses? I turned…

And got smashed right in the bloody face by one of Christy's tails and sent flying even further. How on earth?

I shifted and blasted Christy back with another aura burst, barely registering that she had seemed to be flying straight at me. I had to shift into my beast form again to more effectively use my durability against the wall that my face was about to be introduced to.

After managing not to get my face pulverized by an unforgiving wall by softlanding and rebounding off of it, I looked at Christy, who was still a good distance away. Two of her tails shot forward and wrapped around some chimneys. Ooooh.

She used that trick to literally slingshot herself at me, starting a forward roll and surrounding herself with her tails, turning herself into a giant flaming bowling ball. I yelped and rolled out of the way as she pulverized the section of the roof that I had managed not to hurt myself on and fell inside.

That was a cue for me to get the hell out of there, and I started running in the opposite direction with my eyes closed once more. I focused, and felt her slingshot herself out of the hole she made for herself once again. Yeah, as long as there were things to yank herself around with, she had the advantage of speed even if I could run faster.

Oh, yikes. She's actually pretty close to me right now.

I generated a small aura sphere above my paw, and slammed it into the ground. This unleashed a cloud of smoke and debris I closed my eyes. I could see in this cloud of dust and she couldn't-

A tail viciously wrapped around my midsection and yanked me closer to Christy and pulled me up close. It lit on fire, and I cried out as I felt the heat burning at my fur. It was so immensely hot that I feared I could be damaged quite permanently if I let it go on.

I unleashed a ton of aura fire and collapsed onto one knee, hoping to recover. Christy's tails wrapped around and pressed down on the flames. My energy started slipping away, bit by bit, but was better than trying to contain her. "Gabriel! I could still hear you when you did that!" Christy explained desperately.

Well, that sucks. Her ears were extremely good, and her body was using them just as much as she was. "Stop listening then!" I exclaimed, finding a hole in her encasing tails and leaped out in an escape venture.

"Do you actually understand what you just asked me to do?" Christy asked in a near deadpan even as she attacked with another fireball. I bolted again. Running… Running… Still running…

I rubbed the scorch mark on my side with a grumble and tossed a few light aura spheres at Christy, whose body took the time to dodge the attacks. Why on earth couldn't this controlling thing be more simple-minded than that? It made everything so much harder.

Okay, okay. I'll stop trying to be funny.

Christy reached me, her tail wrapping around my ankles and tripping me. I spun onto my back and shifted, my bow pointed straight in her face. I blasted her a good distance away from me, gaining a reprieve from her tails in the process.

"I'm going to get whiplash from all this," Christy muttered as she picked herself up. Oh, I couldn't crack jokes but she could? So unfair… Then again, she really was if I accidentally hit her on the head with this thing. I shifted and leapt away from her tails as they smashed at the ground. If those hit me when they smashed into the floor like that, I was probably finished. Christy was more powerful than I was. Her only weakness was that she wasn't impossibly fast. I could manage to keep dodging or redirecting her.

The problem was, that wasn't **getting** me anywhere. I was just spending energy and unless she leveled the entire roof, she was going to be able to go places faster than I could with her fancy slingshot trick.

Oh. Idea.

I shot a burst of aura fire at Christy, and when it hit her, I redirected it to throw her up and over me. Her tails pretty much instantly shot downward like spikes. I backflipped out of the way while they speared the rooftop and dug in while Christy landed on the far side. She also landed on her face, but that didn't stop her tails from tearing a chunk out of the roof and throwing it at me. Instead of dodging backward, I just slipped into the hole in the roof and dropped into a hallway.

There was a startled guy with a coffee mug there. I quickly apologized to the raptor taikan and bolted just as Christy crashed in after me, everything blazing. Time for a little cat and mouse. Fox and jackal. Whatever.

I skidded to a stop at an intersection and turned right. Not that I knew where the heck I was going, but I could find the initially damaged portion of the roof easily enough when I got back up there. With Christy following me, we started going through the motions that we had when we initially broke into this place.

There were shrieks from the corridors around us as people ran away from the carnage. I wondered why Christy was still using her flames when she was just running after me. Perhaps the nature of Malvolio's command had something to do with it. Oh well. As long as nobody else got needlessly hurt.

"Running, running, running…" I muttered as I passed the time. Christy's tails kept forcing me to jump over them or duck them as they swept past me, or sidestep as they crashed into me. And she kept using those intersections to send herself flying forward with intense speed to catch up to me.

Doors opened and closed as people looked out of their rooms to see the commotion, saw it, and panicked and disappeared back into their rooms like scared rabbits (literally in one case).

I blinked. This corridor was larger than the rest. I ran out into it and froze. There were dozens of people walking in either direction, on their way to do **something**. This was likely the main hall, something I hadn't ever seen. My momentum caused me to skid about two meters as everyone stopped and turned to me.

And the doorway exploded behind me, sending them into a panic. Wonderful. These people thought they were under attack instead of just me.

I jumped away from Christy as she barrelled forward and everyone got a good view of who was attacking me. "We should probably go…" I muttered.

"Shut up and run!" Christy yelled as her tails drew back with bursts of fire prepared. I nodded and bolted once more. Christy wasn't attacking the others around, and she had fewer things to grab onto, so she couldn't catch up to me. I smiled. I was going to be able to get out of here. I darted around a fountain and tried to enter a doorway.

Unfortunately, a burst of water hit the doorframe and suddenly froze. I slammed face first into a very shut doorway and stumbled back. Christy landed nearby me, her tails covered in an azure glow and the water from the fountain swirling around her in a large, violently twisting ring of water and ice.

"Christy!" I complained, "Stop making strategic plans in your head!"

"Sorry!" she wailed as shards of ice sprayed at me while I started running away again. This really wasn't fun. At all. "It's hard not to!"

"I thought that band didn't have any weight on your mind!?" I called as I twisted out of the way of more ice shards. Unfortunately, those shards started to come back around to rejoin Christy's nasty looking water ring. "Also... what's with the indoor fountain?" I suddenly asked.

"I just saw it and thought-Look out!" Christy exclaimed as she caused a large icicle to rocket towards me and shatter against the floor as I twisted out of the way. "Pay attention, damn it!"

I started running again. Oh boy, were we causing a ruckus. Christy had a ring of fire and a ring of ice around her, making an 'X' in front of her as she charged. Getting hit by that wouldn't be fun. Not with the blade-like edges of the ice ring. So I continued to run, making tracks and avoiding ice shards she kept shooting at me.

Suddenly, a hawk taikan burst out in front of me. He pointed a gilded spear straight at me as I barreled down the hall, making me veer off to the right to avoid him. "Get back here, punk!" he shouted as he lunged. Unfortunately for him, Christy could control whatever was not set on murdering me, and so the guy got a good helping of tail fur to the face as he was sent flying. I thanked my lucky stars until that same tail raced towards me with immense speed, and I had lost too much speed because of that one guy, who Malvolio probably sent to help kill me. The guy probably had a dozen people ready with weapons for when I got nearby.

Christy's tail wrapped around my neck and she thrust me into the wall faster than I could comprehend. I gasped as the breath left my lungs for a moment, getting disoriented. Then her tail let go, and I looked up to see the three tails glowing with water manipulation power arching over me and the ice ring starting to crack and break in front of me. I covered my face with my arms, prepared to unleash aura flames in a desperation move, but I knew this was going to hurt a bit.

Just before I could release the flames, I heard the sounds of ice breaking and clattering to the floor, and Christy gasping. I lowered my arms with one eye open, and blinked in confusion. There was a blue taikan standing in front of me, arms out, facing Christy. His shirt and long pants were also blue. Christy's attack had bounced off of him, the ice shards down there.

I didn't bother to identify the person. I just grabbed him and ran as Christy's tails launched fire next and scorched the spot where we had been standing. Darn, this guy was heavy!

"W-what are you doing?" he asked fearfully.

"Saving your life!" I exclaimed, "Now get out of here!" I continued, dropping him on his feet out of the way before changing course "Find a safe place!"

I turned back, blinking. Had that been that Cobalt guy? Huh. I guess the metal fur is why he could block the attack. Now that Christy was not aiming at him because he wasn't between the both of us, I was back on the run. Christy had lost the water, however.

"Alright." I noticed a skylight "Let's get out of this crowd." I blasted apart the glass with an aura sphere and crouched down, tensing, before leaping upwards. This part of the roof, sadly, was rather high, so I barely caught the rim and pulled myself out onto the roof.

This moment cost me a lot, as Christy could easily get through there with her slingshot trick. I shifted and pointed my bow at the hole as I did an about face, and shot Christy straight in the muzzle with another knockback-based attack and sent her flying backwards, giving a pitiful yelp. I winced and called an apology before I, silently as I could manage, jumped back into the skylight and into the hall again. She wouldn't be able to find me immediately, although her body would certainly be forced to try.

I breathed out a sigh of relief and darted over to a door, opening it and slipping inside. It was, interestingly enough, a janitor's closet. I stopped and rested my ear against the door. There was a 'thump' as Christy landed back in the hallway, and i heard what was most likely her sprinting down towards the end of the hall and further away. I sighed with relief once more. Christy was going to be fine. Forced to run in random directions until she found me, but fine. I had to get to Malvolo and kick some serious ass.

Then the door opened slowly. Cobalt stuck his head in. Yeah, it was definitely him. "It's you," he said as I stepped outside.

"Me." I agreed, groaning as I leaned backward and listened to my back pop a couple of times. "Thanks for the save."

"Er… You're welcome?" he rubbed the back of his neck.

I found a side corridor and started jogging down it. "I need to find Malvolio. Right now." I said. "You've got surveillance duties all the time. Do you know where he goes often?"

"Wait, wait." Cobalt cut me off, catching up to me. "I thought you said you were searching for your friend?"

"I was searching for my friend's **sister**." I corrected him "And my friend is currently being forced to kill me by Malvolio, so I've got to find that white-furred asshole and beat the crap out of him before he makes the situation worse, and maybe I can free Christy while I'm at it."

"W-where's your friend?" Cobalt asked as we ran.

"I just kept you from getting roasted by her," I said lightly. He, however, got a look of surprise and fear in his eyes. "Calm down. She's only after me. You happened to be in the way, so her attack would have hit you."

"And what was your name?"

"Gabriel."

Cobalt silently stared ahead, frowning. "I never saw this Malvolio guy you're describing, but… I did see some surveillance on what part of the compound you guys blew up first."

"Thanks." I nodded. "We'll start from there."

Five minutes of running later, I had a question. "Why are you helping me right now?" I asked.

He sighed. "I… Don't know, honestly. Life's been pretty boring until you showed up and pretty much broke everything down. And… And you have a good reason to be around and such." he looked up, his eyes holding a grim expression. "And I felt you were right. I've practically been a prisoner in this place myself."

I closed my eyes, my senses kicking into action and letting me run without seeing with my eyes. Poor Christy. At this point, she was probably sprinting around without being able to even stop to take a breather. But I didn't know where Malvolio was. I couldn't help her without finding him.

Cobalt helpfully led me all the way back to the hall where the initial room was. I knew it was the correct place because the door Christy had thrown had dented the wall at the intersection. I looked down it. Dang, Christy had thrown that pretty far. The hallway ended with that room and that room was easily fifty meters away.

"Yikes." Cobalt frowned at the door.

"You said it." I agreed, running forward. We darted into the room, finding no trace of Malvolio.

Unfortunately….

"Hey, buddy-boy," Raina said smirkinig from where she leaned on the counter, one arm straight and planted on it, the other on her hip. Cobalt started shivering as he literally hid behind me.

"P-prosecutor…" he whispered.

"Raina." I said. "I need to know where Malvolio is."

"Well, that's a shame." she shrugged, straightening and starting to walk towards us. "See, the boss ordered me to tear your throat out if I ever saw you again."

I sighed. "And we both know you don't want to do that," I said evenly. "You don't look all dazed, so you're no longer affected by his order. He left a while ago, didn't he?"

Raina frowned. "Boo," she muttered, shaking her head. "I was going to hold my claws to your neck dramatically and all that, wait 'till you're shaking with fear, and then pull back and laugh. You've ruined my fun, Gabe. Again."

"Think of it this way," I smiled. "I'll bet Malvolio's suffering plenty right now knowing that he's going to be my target."

She grined too. "Oh. This'll be fun," she said. "Yeah, I'll walk you straigh to him. Oh hey, it's the wimp."

Cobalt, in true wimp fashion, continued keeping me between himself and Raina.

"Come on, Raina. We have your sister to save." I turned around and started for the door.

"Is little metal-fur not even going to greet me properly?" her hands were back on her hips. "Not nice."

"Just get moving." I growled, about to exit the room.

"Wrong door, idiot." Raina walked to the opposite side of the room and opened the opposing door.

I rolled my eyes and followed her.

Cobalt kept a five-meter gap between himself and the prosecutor as she led us through the compound. She was walking, which was infuriating. Still, it was more uncomfortable than anything because the teenager behind me was acting like a terrified little kid in her presence. I wondered if her claws could really cut through anything. I wondered what their limit was. I looked at my pawspikes. They were still blunt, thankfully, after the healing thing that Raina had tossed me in. I'd be annoyed if they got sharp again.

We continued to walk, everyone clearing out of Raina's way. I'm sure they were sending us piteous looks from behind as we passed, certain that we weren't going to make it away without several emotional and physical scars.

I wondered if they were correct.

Raina stopped by a rather nice looking polished wooden door and gestured to it. I nodded to her and prepared myself to kick the door down. I whirled, sending a scorching kick into the polished wood and sent the door flying inwards.

I stepped into the room, and Malvolio himself whirled and leapt away from me. "You!" he snarled "What-... How did you discover my location!?"

Cobalt stepped in. "Uh… Gabe? The prosecutor just bailed on us."

I blinked. "Well, that makes sense. This guy's got some sort of brainwashing thing going on with her. If she really wants this bugger taken down, she's going to have to stay away so she doesn't wind up gutting us."

Cobalt blinked. "Wait… She isn't always that terrifying?" he asked quietly.

I frowned. "No, I don't think her personality's connected to the brainwashing… Anymore."

Cobalt shivered.

Malvolio, clearly ticked at being totally ignored, growled. His tail started glowing with white light. "Begone!" he shouted.

"Nah, I'm good." I said as I stepped forward. "Let's make this simple, Malvolio. You are going to free Christy. **Now**."

Malvolio glared at me.

"I'm serious," I told him. "You release Christy, and me, her, and Raina will be out of your fur forever. I'll take Armalita and Cobalt here too. We leave, you never have to hear from us again."

"No." Malvolio snarled. He swung his tail at me, and a blade of light energy erupted from it. I rolled out of the way, but Cobalt had zero training. He took the attack and was knocked back.

"Cobalt!" I exclaimed, having assumed he would have avoided it. However, he kind of scrambled up, looking perfectly fine. "Oh. Right. Just try not to get hit by those." I said, sweatdropping. He was made of metal, and wouldn't have been sliced in half by the attack.

"Uh, yeah. Sure." Cobalt nodded shakily as he backed up to the door.

Malvolio stepped away from me as blue flames came from my form and rose up. "Christy's not the only pacifist you managed to piss off." I growled. He backed away from me for a few steps, clearly afraid, before he bolted into an office of sorts off to the side of the room. I hadn't even bothered to look, but there was a bed here, and a bunch of other things that looked kind of homely. So the bugger ran off to his own house to hide?

But then, I heard Malvolio's voice overhead. He must have managed to activate the magic equivalent of an intercom. "Christy," he said. "Meet me at room zero-two-five. Make haste!"

My eyes widened and I bolted through the door into the office, hurling an aura sphere indiscriminately in Malvolio's direction. As the taikan dodged, the button he had held with his hand was obliterated.

"That was a mistake," I growled. He crouched down much like Armalita had before, his tail arched like a scorpion's, and he fired a beam of white energy at me that thankfully didn't move at the speed of light. I sidestepped it and shifted forms. Pulling back on my bowstring, I summoned an actual arrow, pointed at his face. "Stand up and face me."

He slowly stood up, eyeing my bow cautiously. The two-dimensional laser arrow on my bowstring hummed as it waited to be released. "Free Christy," I ordered.

Malvolio must have thought I was honestly going to kill him, because he started to stutter. "I-I can't!" he exclaimed, "The bond is permanent!"

"Try again," I said.

"I swear! I can't free her!"

I took a step forward. "I. Don't. Believe. You."

He stood still for a long time, holding his arms up as if to protect his face. "I swear." He said shakily "I honestly swear. It's a permanent bond."

"I suppose I will simply have to ask Christy." I said, shifting into my beast form and suddenly twisting Malvolio into a choke hold just as my best friend blasted through the doorway and started moving towards the office, breathing hard. Malvolio opened his mouth to issue an order.

"Tell her to do anything, and I break your neck." I threatened.

Malvolio piped down. I decided I couldn't risk it and punched him in the gut hard enough to make him pass out and collapse. I dropped him unceremoniously onto the floor. Quickly dropping next to him, I grabbed the band around his arm, and pulled. It didn't budge. It was like it was a part of his skin or something, despite being perfectly solid above it. I couldn't move it.

Hearing the sound of feet, I turned back only to get wrapped in a hug.

"Oh, Gabriel…" Christy sobbed. "You're all right." her arms and all her tails were wrapped around me tightly, so tightly I couldn't return the hug.

"It's okay." I murmured. "We can leave right after we get this thing off of his wrist."

Christy stilled, and drew back. "Gabriel.." she murmured. Unfortunately, we were interrupted again. Cobalt came in, running around the corner. He closed the blinds to the window between the main room and the office and hid behind it.

I saw why when Raina sauntered up. "Yo." she greeted all of us. Christy straight up forgot I existed and pulled the same hugging trap on her sister, who blinked a few times.

"Raina!" Christy cried. Oh my god, Raina…"

"Oh come on, how mushy is this gonna get?" Raina asked with her trademark smirk. "C'mon, it's only been eleven years."

"Please…" Christy murmured "Don't do anything so stupid as to sacrifice yourself for me ever again!"

"Sure thing." Raina deadpanned.

"And.. And…" Christy stopped, trailing off and just leaning on her sister while, tears continuing to stream from her eyes. I couldn't help but smile. Raina might be different now, but maybe she'd recover. Maybe not, of course, but…

Cobalt stared with surprise at the girls as Christy, who was slightly taller than her sister, did her best to crush her in a hug. Cobalt just gave the both of them plenty of distance and stayed near me. "What should we do if this guy wakes up?"

"We smash his face into the floor and knock him out again." I nodded. Then a shadow appeared in the doorway almost as if from nowhere. "Hold it!" I exclaimed, tossing a few aura flames to illuminate the intruder.

Cobalt jumped. "Armalita's here too?" he asked, blinking rapidly. "Who else is gonna show up?"

Armalita slowly walked in, right past the flame I had hovering in the air. She looked at Raina and Christy, and then turned to Cobalt, Malvolio and I. "This is one sight I did not believe I would ever see." Armalita finally decided to say. "Malvolio easily defeated, Christy safe, Raina being hugged, Cobalt not doing his duty…" she spared a moment to shoot a deadpan look at the metal-furred taikan, who shuddered. "And you, Gabriel, apparently successful in your task and apparently now my friend's best friend."

She allowed herself a small smile. "Indeed a strange turn of events."

"Christy." Raina deadpanned "You're soaking my fur."

Christy stilled for a few minutes. I watched her eyes open as she registered that Raina really wasn't returning the hug or even trying to. Her bright blue eyes were filled with confusion, even after everything. She pulled back and gripped Raina by the shoulders, her blue eyes meeting Raina's red ones. "Raina?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong is it's super hard to get water fully out of my fur." Raina shrugged, and just… Stepped away from Christy. "It absorbs water like nobody's business. A hairdryer only does so much." I could only watch as my best friend stared after her sister, stunned and hurt.

"Raina," I said before things could get any worse.

"What is it?" she asked, looking over her shoulder at me. I gestured to Christy as I stepped forward, and forced a glare at the unique taikan.

"Just… Your sister **needs** you." I said, faltering at first and then my voice increased in strength. "So go to her. The old you may be gone permanently, but you don't get to just neglect your sister like that, not when she's been worrying over your fate for eleven entire years and then spent the most recent period of time thinking that you were being tortured to this very day." I challenged her.

Raina scoffed, and was about to turn towards Armalita for some reason, but I snatched her shoulder with my paw and dragged her around. " **Now**." I growled. Cobalt tensed, and I brought my other arm up in time to block her strike. I wondered how bad that wound would have been.

I was aware of Christy staring in silence behind the both of us, unable to so much as speak. Raina raised an eyebrow as she brought her hand up to brush at the long length of fluff that was brushed to the side so that she could see out of both eyes.

Then she laughed. "I can see why my big sis likes you." she passed me, patting me on the back and walking to Christy. I didn't understand. I rubbed my back, wincing, as her claws had pierced my back when she patted me. I looked at my blood on my paw, frowning, as Raina leaned on the table near Christy.

"So," Raina whispered, and Christy stepped towards her sister. "What happens? I talk first? You talk first? How do you want to go about this?"

Her careless tone was met with a much more gentle and tail-less hug. "...I missed you." Christy murmured. Raina kind of patted Christy's side without injuring her in response, her face kind of dull and unemotional.

"I do not wish to interrupt them," Armalita said to me quietly as she walked up. "However, we must also discuss how we will deal with Malvolio."

I sighed. "We can't let him wake up and manage to give Christy another order," I responded just as quietly. "Armalita, I need you to tell me what you know about that band around his arm. Malvolio claimed that he couldn't release Christy, that it was permanent."

Armalita frowned. "I do not know enough about this type of magic other than that it is the most powerful out there, and the most binding," she claimed. "You will have to bring it up with Christy."

"We're on a clock," I grumbled. Raina was just letting Christy sob into her shoulder weakly. "But I can't stop Christy right now. She needs time."

"If he begins to wake, I will notice." Armalita promised, stepping back. I couldn't help being distracted by how Cobalt was watching Armalita. I nudged him. And gently pushed him off in her direction. Then I slowly sat down in a chair by the desk where I stood. Cobalt looked super shy about everything, and uncertain of himself. Maybe we'd have to deal with that later.

I closed my eyes, listening to Christy talk to Raina. Telling her all about everything that had happened since she left. Raina didn't answer at all when she asked what she went through. In fact, Raina didn't speak at all. Her claws kept twitching, but unlike with the rest of us, she hesitated to attack Christy. It seemed that some part of her remembered her bond with Christy.

But I knew, deep down, that was all they would have in common from now on. It was so painful, watching Christy try to get **anything** out of her sister, who, like she had been doing with the rest of us, was probably wondering what it would sound like when Christy screamed, even if she was repressing it.

I couldn't watch anymore after a few minutes of this, covering my eyes with my paws and sighing as silently as I could manage.

"Raina, please." Christy pleaded "Do you even remember me?"

Raina's eyes narrowed. "I remember the last time I ever bothered to do something good for someone else," she said flatly. "So yes."

"Do you…" Christy tried, before shaking her head. "Do you still paint?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"What do you paint?"

"What kind of question is that?" Raina asked with her hands on her hips. "It's as if you don't think that I remember anything at all."

"That's because you're not acting like you remember me." Christy gestured to her body. "Or mom, or… Or…"

"Listen." Raina cut her off. "Things were actually kind of simple and easy until you all came along. I enjoy what I do. A lot.." she flashed her claws with a menacing smirk. "And it's just gonna get more messy from here on out, so let's figure out what to do with the boss instead."

Christy jolted back when the girl flashed her claws, not saying a word as Raina turned back around and sauntered towards the rest of us. Cobalt chose the path of least danger and hid behind Armalita this time.

I closed my eyes for a count of ten, silent, unnerving seconds. "I need to know how to separate this band from Malvolio," I said, intentionally being general in who I was speaking to.

I was met with silence again. Damn it, this was not how things were supposed to happen. Raina looked around, and shrugged. "Oh well." she said. "I'm out. Be back in like, twenty or something. I dunno. You people have fun breaking it to buddy boy over here."

I stiffened. "Breaking what to me?" I demanded, but the girl was gone.

Christy's hand had been outstretched towards where Raina was, but she slowly lowered it. Her expression was one of blank and uncomprehending shock. It wrenched at my own heart to see her like that. I got to my feet and stepped over to her. "Christy." I said, putting my paw on her arm. "Come on." I coaxed "Let's sit down. We have to talk about what we're going to do next."

"B-but… Raina…" she whispered.

"I know, Christy." I murmured, pulling her into a hug.

"Will she ever return to normal?" she asked desperately, looking like she was drowning on dry land mentally.

"I'm sorry, Christy." I said as I led her to a set of comfortable chairs in the corner. Christy heard my words and choked, her tears matting my fur down. "Please. I need you to help me right now. We have to free you from Malvolio. The danger isn't past just yet."

Christy blinked, and nodded slowly.

"Thanks, Christy." I said, keeping my paw to her back and rubbing it, trying to sooth her somewhat. "You know all about these bands, so… I need to know what we can do to get it off of his arm."

She stared at me. "Gabriel…" she whispered. "That magic is a permanent bond."

It might as well have been her slamming me with her tails. "What?" I croaked finally, unable to believe that. "That's not possible. **Nothing's** flawless. Nothing."

"This is." Christy closed her eyes. "Mother told me so. It binds directly to the wearer's life force, becoming a part of it for as long as they're connected. Binding pure life energy to something is the most indisputable form of defence. Channeling life force through inanimate, non-biological objects makes them indestructible. But it costs so much magic to achieve that that it's completely impractical, except in this one case. This band became the embodiment of my will, my actual force of will completely separate from my body."

"You're honestly telling me that we can't destroy it because it might do something to you, and we can't remove it because it's permanently a part of Malvolio's life force?" I asked weakly. "Christy, please, tell me you've been leaving something out. Please!"

"I can't, Gabriel!" Christy suddenly shouted at me, looking so heartbroken it was horrifying. "It's permanent! It was always going to be permanent!"

I pulled her into a hug quickly, squeezing as powerfully as I dared. "There is always a way." I whispered. "I am going to protect you, Christy, and I need to know right now, no matter how difficult it might be, if there is a way to remove that band from his arm."

"You can't…" she whispered again.

"I don't believe you." I was very stubborn "It's life energy bonded to that thing right?"

Christy stiffened. Never, ever, had she ever heard me say I didn't believe her. I always believed her. Right here, right now, I was disagreeing because there was no way in hell I was letting this man control Christy until the day she died. "G-Gabriel…" she whispered, shocked.

"I'm going to save you." I said. "'Impossible' just isn't going to be a word anymore when I'm done with it. Now what did you say about life?"

The six-tailed taikan stuttered for a while, but eventually… "It's bound to his life force."

I closed my eyes. "Then I think I know what you're refusing to tell me." I told her, feeling her stiffen.

"Gabriel, you can't possibly!"

"If I have no other choice." I said strongly, and I finally let her go. The look in my eye must have scared her.

She covered her mouth with her hands. "I've never seen you like this…" she whispered.

I stood up and walked over to Malvolio. "The band is connected to his life force." I said aloud. "The only way I can free you is to cut that life force off. Permanently."

Everyone stiffened, but I continued anyways. "I am not going to force you to be on the run for the rest of your life because one command from him will send you running back, or killing everything you love." I growled. "Christy, for the entire time we've lived together…"

Christy's tail grabbed me and pulled me away from him. "Gabriel, please! We can run if we want to!" she exclaimed, moving towards the door to the hallway. "If we get back home, we'll be in the clear! That's all we have to manage!"

But Christy reached the doorframe, and stopped, shivering, before taking a step back. "What?" she asked, pushing her hand towards the doorway, and being unable to pass her hand through it.

"I believe I know why that happened." Armalita stepped through into the main room to join us. I supposed that Cobalt was still watching Malvolio. "Malvolio ordered you to meet him in this room. Because he is unconscious, you have not met him yet, and therefore, cannot leave the room."

Christy stared at her hand that she had been unable to pass through the door, shivering slightly. "...Oh."

"And if Malvolio wakes up and gets even one word out, we could be finished." I added flatly.

"He doesn't even need to say anything." we all heard, and turned to see Raina leaning on the doorframe.

"What?" Christy croaked.

"The last time he gave you an order, it was to kill buddy boy over here." she pointed a claw at me. "This order here totally overrode that, but not for long. Commands tend to stack on one another. As soon as he wakes up, you've fulfilled that order and the very first thing you're going to do next is to murder Gabriel."

Her uncaring tone mixed with that information had Christy stepping away from her sister. "No…" Christy murmured "There has to be another way out of this!"

"There is one way out of this." I growled "And I am going to take it for your sake, Christy."

Christy grabbed me as I retreated, pulling her closer to me. "Gabriel, please!" she shouted "You've always gone on about how you feel about violence, and now you're going to throw every ideal you've ever had away in one moment for me!?"

"Yeah."

"That's ridiculous!"

I whirled on her, angry. "Tough!" I exclaimed. "If you didn't want it to come to this, it would have been better to save your sister and let me die."

Christy's eyes widened. "Gabe!"

"We all know that this was going to be the end result the moment I managed to survive and he had your will in his grasp." I told her flatly. "Do you trust me?"

"...Yes..." Christy whispered "Gabriel… Please. You're not-"

"Not going to be able to forgive myself?" I guessed "Christy, if I let you spend the rest of your life under Malvolio's command, the alternative of ending his life right now would barely scratch the surface of regret in comparison."

Christy finally let me go, drawing her tails back. Her eyes were tearing up again as I walked back into the room.

I knelt by the man's unconscious form. "There is one more thing we have to know," I said aloud. This drew everyone's attention, and I continued: "When we first arrived in Taika, an old man told us that if we were forced to kill Malvolio, the battle would become very one-sided."

Armalita stiffened. "Without proper leadership, it's only a matter of time before Taika is overrun." she growled, her trident hand twitched.

"But not if we do what he said we needed to do to help preserve that balance. We can stop Taika from being torn apart by the opposing army if… We kill Boreas as well."

Christy gasped. "But…" she whispered "That's…"

"An assassination mission." Armalita whispered darkly.

"I know." I nodded grimly. "But, as the man possibly expected, we have no choice anymore. Once we do this, we head straight to Prokopios without hesitation. We'll be in a hurry."

"Wait-" Christy started, but Raina was at her side, and covered her sister's muzzle with her hand.

"Buddy boy's right." she said. "About there being no other choice, and honestly, it's about damn time we stopped this war. Nobody's in any position to run the country after this." she grinned, "Besides, I'll bet there'll be lots of people to 'question'."

"And the same will be true in Prokopios." I agreed, ignoring the sadistic grin. "Maybe after that, there really will be a chance for peace. But right now, I have to be the bad guy. Everyone else… You guys could probably go home if you want to. If I have to do it myself, then I'll try. You guys don't need to be involved."

Christy slowly pushed her sister's arm away. "Gabriel…" she whispered. I shook my head and stood up. I shifted forms and slowly pulled my bowstring, summoning an actual arrow onto it. The two dimensional arrow representation hummed as it waited to be released. I slowly aimed it for the white wolf taikan's head.

I heard a ringing of metal and suddenly a very pointy trident was in my face as Christy gasped. I looked tiredly up, seeing Armalita with fury in her eyes. It didn't even faze me. I had forgotten that Armalita was oblivious to who I was.

Armalita was going to say something, but was suddenly captured by Christy's tails, trident and all. "Don't!" Christy shrieked as she held her friend in place. "Please!"

Armalita didn't say a word. She simply glared at me. I stared back, feeling a dullness creeping into my heart and mind, because of what I was about to do. "Hate me if you want. It's not going to stop me from saving Christy."

"How should I know that you can stomach killing your **own** leader!?" she snarled, straining against Christy's tails.

"Because he is not my leader. Like Christy, I ran away." I said, my voice near a deadpan at this point. Armalita stilled somewhat and looked at Christy.

"He's telling the truth." Christy whispered. "I know it's hard to believe, Armalita, but he ran far enough away to find himself where I lived, and you know I can check him for sincerity."

"I have to do this." I said, more for myself than for anyone else. "From this point forward…"

I sighed. "I officially become a part of this war."

Most of everyone was still, but Christy finally stepped forward. I put away my weapon so she didn't hurt herself on the laser arrow, and she wrapped me in a gentle hug of all things. I couldn't contain my shock. "What are you doing, Christy?" I asked. "I'm about to throw my values away, the values we used to share. Why… You should hate me right now."

"Maybe…" Christy murmured as if unsure, "But… I don't. I can't. Not after everything we've been through and all the times you've been there for me and the fact that you're throwing away this **for** me… I couldn't ever hate you."

I closed my eyes. "Thank you, Christy." I whispered back, and gently pushed her away and drawing my bow once more. Meeting everyone's eyes, it was easy to tell what they were thinking.

Cobalt was scared and confused. He stayed on the side of the room away from everyone, staring uncertainly at the man that I was about to… Kill.

Raina had her hands on her hips again and she looked kind of intrigued, actually. I felt a chill looking at that expression.

Armalita clearly could not have been more conflicted. I had defeated her in battle, and honor was important to her, but she had also not known I was a prokopian until just now, and had grown up being told, whether she believed it or not, that we were always the enemy. She would have to make her decision some other time. For now, it doesn't look like she was going to stop me from saving Christy.

Christy… Looked defeated. I don't know how else I could possibly describe it. We were all going to survive, but Christy was about to watch me end someone's life so that we could actually have it. It was crushing her to watch, but she refused to hate me.

I realized right now that I would never meet anybody who cared about me more than Christy did. She didn't want me to do this because it would hurt **me** , not because it goes against what **she** thought was the right thing to do. We'd been left with no choice, and if we let him wake up first, I wouldn't be able to do it with his eyes open. Christy would never stop caring for the people she loves, from her sister to her friends. Even if those people did something horrible. She would never stop loving Raina. She would never stop treating me as her best friend.

I pulled the string back fully, hearing the hum of the arrow filling my ears. "I'm sorry." I whispered "It looks like we're going to be a part of this war after all."

 **VNN!**

I lowered my bow. Christy stumbled and nearly fell, but I stepped forward and caught her in my paws as I shifted, keeping her on her feet. She looked kind of tired, but not enough to collapse. "You're free," I whispered to her. I wasn't. Not anymore. Whether Christy came with me or not, I had just signed up for an assassination mission.

But much as I might have expected it, I failed to feel tears coming at all. Perhaps once you kill someone, you break inside. "You're going to be all right." I whispered.

"I know…" she returned "But are you?"

"Probably not." I replied as I looked back. "At least, not for a while."

I turned to her. "I need help." I said. I need your help."

She hugged me again. "I'll help you, Gabriel," she responded. She was very warm, very alive. She was holding me very tightly, but it didn't hurt. I recognized that my spike on my chest was probably jabbing her in a very uncomfortable way, even if it wasn't sharp, and shifted forms again. The girl released an involuntary sigh of relief in response.

I pulled away from her, not allowing myself a smile right now. But I did feel somewhat better after her comfort. I closed my eyes, feeling a state of relaxation try to take hold of me despite what happened, and I realized why; I had just saved Christy's future, and no matter what the cost had been, my heart reached towards her and not towards the deceased taikan on the ground.

Christy yelped as I was hit with something nearly invisible to my aura senses and hurled against a wall. My eyes flew open as I registered that I was stuck to the wall by something. I looked at my pinned arms and legs and chest. Needles had embedded themselves into my clothing around me in an outline of my body, pinning me against the wall without hurting me.

Armalita had her trident under my chin. "You and I are going to have a little talk." she growled.

Christy moved to pull Armalita away, but the tail she moved was snatched out of the air. She looked aside, and saw that her sister had grabbed it harshly. "He's not gonna die. Probably." Raina shrugged. "You've got something more important to do."

I watched as Christy saw Malvolio, and she walked over and easily slid the band off of his arm. Then Armalita, not enjoying being ignored, pressed her trident harder against my neck. "Tell me who you are. Everything."

"My name is Gabriel," I answered calmly, doubting she was going to actually hurt me. Her trident pulled back when I started speaking after all. "I grew up with only two friends. One, a prokopian whose beast form was a cobaltum, and who I lost years ago. The other was someone who looked just like me, but he was far more powerful. And then he had to go, despite having raised me since I was two, because his own family needed him to do his duty, so the last time I saw him outside of my dreams was when he helped me escape the compound I lived in by, well, blasting my roof apart and flying off. No, I'm not kidding."

I looked her in the eye. "Yes, I was trained in battle, as the people in charged hoped to use my skills as a unique to tear into the opposing forced, but… My lookalike, father figure, and best friend—who are the same person—taught me the value of life and that it should not be taken unless absolutely necessary." I grew sad "And I stand by the fact that this was necessary."

"After I escaped, I traveled alone for a while, but I got hit by a snowstorm that came out of nowhere and was losing heat fast. If Christy hadn't happened upon me in the middle of the snowstorm, I wouldn't be alive today."

"Finally, she accepted me into her home after a brief paranoid standoff when we realized what species we each were, and that we were different species. It was easy to get past of course once it was obvious neither of us meant any harm. So… We started to live together, work together... " I chuckled "The only thing she doesn't let me help her with is cook."

Armalita remained in her threatening position for a while. Then her trident lowered as the tension in her muscles faded. She said nothing, but she did step back and walk over to Christy, who still had the band in her hand.

"Uh... " I called from where I was, straining against the needles holding me down and making surprisingly little headway in freeing myself. I shifted forms and used my aura fire to pull them out before landing on one knee on the ground.

Collecting the needles in a handful, I handed them over to Armalita. "You dropped these," I said as I walked over to Christy. "Are you going to put that back on?" I asked.

She sighed. "It wouldn't do too much good. I've already taken it off. Anybody could rip to off if they chose to." she explained quietly. "I'd be much safer if my will was with someone else, someone it would permanently bond to."

I stiffened. "Christy, we just got you **out** of that mess!" I exclaimed.

"Someone I trust." Christy clarified.

Silence. Nobody moved. I didn't breathe. It lasted for an entire minute.

"No," I said, backing up. "No way. I'm not putting that thing on!"

Raina merely raised an eyebrow as I backed all the way into the wall. Christy stayed where she was, the band hanging from her arm. "You can just hide it! You can do something to it so that nobody ever finds it! Like… Bury it! Or seal it in a solid block of metal or something!"

"Not gonna work." Raina proclaimed. She had somehow captured Cobalt and had her arm around the poor metal-furred taikan. "Mom told us all about the enchantments she was forced to put on that band. If it gets lost, it's going to attract all sorts of people who would use it for the war. It's not **going** to stay hidden. If nobody's wearing it, it'll be found and used."

"There has to be a way!" I exclaimed. "I can't just take your freedom from you!"

"My freedom was honestly taken from me the moment this band was put around my neck," Christy said, hunching over somewhat.

"That's not even true!" I exclaimed. "Malvolio took it from you just now, when you refused to let me die!"

"And you're alive because of it." Christy shot back, beginning to grow slightly angry. "Gabriel, you are the **only** one I trust enough!"

"But why!?" I clenched my fist.

"...Why?" Christy asked as if confused.

"The time you've known me can be counted in less than a year!" I waved my arms frantically "So what if I'm the most helpful person you know!? What about Armalita? She's the most honorable person out there! Heck, even with her trident pointed at my neck I trusted her! Or, or… Somebody! Maybe you can put the band on your own arm and people will think you've got control of someone else and assume the band will be stuck!"

"I can't!" Christy exclaimed. "Raina told you all about the magic that'll make enemies come to us! And I haven't seen Armalita in years and we're running out of time here! And you?"

She lowered her voice and stepped straight up to me, her face inches from mine. "Remember what happened the day that I told you about my sister first, and how I didn't know what happened to her? You realized you couldn't comfort me directly, and instead helped decorate the tree and took a photograph of the amazing view we had, helping my spirits immediately!"

"Do you remember when I thought that they were still torturing Raina to this day, and I got angry and was ready to tear apart this compound when I got here brick by freaking brick!? You calmed me, you made me see reason and relax before I got myself killed for no other reason than you were concerned for me!"

"And what about Aminity!? You didn't want to fight, but the moment you thought I was going to die you practically exploded with outward power and distracted her! And when she was about to take you out, you accepted it even if I didn't!"

"Or maybe when we had to talk to those guys in Cardinal Town! You acted **perfectly**! Your actions and words were so choreographed with mine it was crazy! You did exactly what you needed to do to act with me, and even when we both were intentionally acting out of character, we still worked together perfectly without any sort of planning or rehearsal! And it's hardly the first time! We honestly agree on nearly everything!"

"When we talked about this before we went into Crescent City, and you learned what this band was, you were **scared** of me giving it to you! You don't want to take my freedom from me, and that alone makes me trust you with my life immensely!"

"And my opinion **matters** to you! You ask me what I need, what I want, what I think! You **care** more than any person I've ever met! You care so much it's completely unrealistic how much you care, and it's so incredible! Literally, the only time you did something for **yourself** was when you got me to understand how to accept your flames! And you know why you did that!? Because I know!"

"...Because you were crying." I whispered hoarsely.

"Because I was crying!" she shouted. "Look me in the eyes, and tell me that I shouldn't trust you! Can you do it!?"

"..." I couldn't.

"So you take this band," she said furiously. "You take my will and you put it on and you keep it and yourself alive and safe. You do that! Right now!"

I stood tall, steeling my emotions. "I will not take your freedom from y-!"

Something struck me in the back of the head hard enough to knock me out, because I was in my human form and my body wasn't as durable. I dropped to the ground and promptly lost consciousness.

* * *

"You're **really** sure we're safe?"

I woke silently, not intending to let anyone know. I didn't need to continue that conversation yet. I had to think. Somebody had knocked me out from behind. It had probably been Armalita.

"I am certain, Cobalt."

Speak of the devil. Those two were nearby.

"That's good." Oh hey, there's Christy. She's okay. Good. "Once Gabriel wakes up, we're going to have to have a long conversation."

I forced myself not to shiver.

"Not gonna take too long, is it, buddy boy?" I heard Raina super close to me. I hadn't been awake enough to focus with my senses, because I felt so tired right now. I felt her palm under my chin, her claws digging into my fragile human skin as she lifted my head up. No point in pretending, as Raina had somehow detected me waking up.

"I sensed him wake as well," Armalita said in the background. I couldn't hide things too well, I guess. Or maybe Armalita's super attentive. I opened my eyes to find Raina giving her teasing and suggestive smirk with her face right in mine. She let me go and I found myself nearly falling over sideways before I caught myself with my arm. I looked up.

We were in a very familiar living quarters. Paintings were all over the walls in red and black. "Look familiar?" Raina asked "It should. You're weirder than I am, you know that? Not liking it when girls wear indecent clothing but sneaking into their rooms to find them?"

"You were the person we were trying to save," I grumbled, sitting up properly, recognizing that I had wound up against a wall. I saw Christy standing in the background. "Christy?"

She was standing before the easel that had the most recently started painting. She stared at the picture of her, her sister, and her mother together. "Even to this day…" she said. "Raina, do you have any idea how happy it makes me that you remember her image so well?"

"Apparently I haven't," Raina said unhelpfully, smiling teasingly. "Wasn't she purple, white and black?"

Christy sighed. "You know what I mean," she replied. She walked over to me and knelt down. "How are you feeling, Gabriel?"

"I'm tired…" I complained, sighing. "Sleepy. I guess I'm just too stressed out to function properly."

She smiled and ruffled my hair. "You should get some rest then," she whispered. "Come over to the couch or something with me."

I looked over at Armalita. "Why'd you hit me?" I asked.

"We were running out of time and were about to be swarmed." she explained "And you were both distracted and acting out, so I struck you and we carried you out. Caught a bit of attention along the way because you decided to be unhelpful and stayed in your human form."

"I was unconscious!"

"She's trying to make a joke. Christy explained as she lifted me up by putting her shoulder under mine and wrapping her arm around my shoulders, supporting me, walking me over to the couch and sitting us both down. We sank quite a bit into the super-cushiony material. She actually leaned against me, pressing her head into mine. "I'm so glad you're okay... " she whispered.

"Um…" I felt heat on my cheeks. "Why are you being so… Clingy?"

"It's just hitting me that we're all going to be okay, that everyone survived," she said, still pressed against me. Something was off, I knew it.

"Christy, where did you put your will?" I asked, suddenly jolting up and looking around.

"Er…"

"Christy, you can't just leave something so important lying around!"

"I know."

I put my hands on her shoulders, shaking her slightly. "Do you know how dangerous that thing is!? We need to find it no-..."

I froze. There was absolute silence as I registered Christy's solemn expression, and a brown band glowing on my arm. I could only stare. I didn't move, didn't breathe, didn't so much as blink. Hell, I wasn't even **thinking**. I could only stare.

"...What?" I asked blankly, but my mind finally caught up. I stumbled away from Christy and tripped over the footrest for the couch, landing on my back against the floor. "What have you done!?"

"We're trying to stay somewhat quiet." Christy tried to change the topic. I wasn't having it, though. I gripped the band with my hand and tried to pull it off of myself. It didn't budge at all. I pulled as hard as I could physically manage. Nothing. My human arm was thicker than my animal arm, I realized, and quickly shifted, trying to sneak my paw under the band and tear it off. Frighteningly enough, it shrunk with my arm flawlessly, and I merely scrabbled at it with my paw to no avail.

"Dammit, someone get this thing off of me!" I growled. "Get. It. Off!"

Christy suddenly leapt into action. She wrapped her fingers around the band and started pulling on it as hard as she could. I registered shock on her face, but didn't place it for a moment in my sheer confusion as she added her tails to the mix and started pulling with her tails as well.

My eyes widened. "Gah! No! Stop!" I exclaimed, both because it felt like my arm was going to come off and because I realized that Christy had just reacted to my **unintentional** order. Christy obeyed instantly to the word 'stop', her tails and arms falling off of the band while I held my arm. "No…" I said, stepping back.

"Gabriel…" Christy murmured.

"No!" I shouted, backing up enough to run into another wall. "This can't be happening!"

I slowly slid down the wall, staring at the glowing runes along the band as the constant yellow light and the black void of the center of the runes kept my eyes focused on them. "I can't…" I whispered, failing to finish my sentence.

There was a knock at the door, presumably from the noise I made. Armalita ushered everyone to the wall I was against, away from the sight of the door, and Raina went over and opened it with one claw, her other hand on her hip.

"Hello," she smirked at the man who was there. He stiffened at seeing the girl.

"Ah… Prosecutor! We heard a commotion in the room, and are searching for the two intruders that initially broke into the compound! We believe they are responsible for the boss' destruction!"

"Oh, that was just me, and my… Informant." Raina grinned wickedly, pausing to lick one of her claws. The man backed up a few steps, but Raina lashed out and struck him across the face before he could get away. "So I'd appreciate not being interrupted." she finished sweetly as the poor taikan ran away with a nasty set of three scars along the size of his muzzle.

"They call her 'prosecutor'…" Christy murmured.

"How the hell can you act so casually!?" I shrieked "Christy! You just submitted yourself to slavery until **I** die!"

"And I made that choice because I know you will do very well," Christy told me.

"This is ridiculous!" I exclaimed "I make mistakes, Christy! What happens when I make a mistake and accidentally say something like an order, whether it's sarcastic or not, huh!?"

"Then we will deal with it. You'll be able to correct your mistakes."

I shuddered, curling my knees up against my chest, staring downward. "Why…" I whispered, blinking tears out of my eyes.

"Gabriel…"

"Why would you do this to me!?" I roared, glaring at her for maybe the first time. I felt betrayed. I couldn't take this. "Why!? Tell me!"

"Because you are the greatest person I've ever met and because you remind me of my mother and because I trust you and because I **need** your support!" Christy yelled back immediately. She shivered and gritted her teeth.

I choked, and then continued breathing heavily. I couldn't do this. I couldn't manage this. I wasn't **good enough**. It wasn't physically **possible** to be good enough! And Christy knew how afraid I was! "Trust!?" I screamed, "What about my trust, huh!?"

Christy stiffened.

"Do you know how afraid I am!?" I continued shouting "Living life knowing that a single slip-up could wrench every ounce of control you had over yourself away from you!? Were you so worried about who you trusted that my trust in you was on the line!? I feel betrayed, Christy!"

She seemed paralyzed. "Gabriel, I didn't mean-" she started, but I was on a roll.

"And this is permanent! You haven't just chosen your own fate, that would be frightening enough, but right here right now, you've chosen **my** fate too! And it may be selfish, it may be horrid, but I care a **lot** about that right now!"

"Please…"

"You said yourself that we work so well together, going on about how much you can trust that we understand one another! And I know that is true! Or it should be true!"

"G-Gabriel!"

"But if you understood me, why didn't you understand that this is the worst possible thing you could have done to me!?" I shouted, finally running out of breath and dropping my head. Christy sat in stunned silence while I tried to repress my tears, registering Raina complaining about the cleanup involved in dealing with my 'wimpy crying'.

"Why did you do this to me?" I whispered, "why?"

* * *

 **That went well. Until it didn't.**

 **But I don't know how much you expected that band to matter over time in the story. I'll give you a hint... No I won't!**

 **Me: Jango. Get off of my computer. Now.**

 **Jango: Aww, but pretending to be you and sounding evil is even more fun than sounding evil when pretending to be me!**

 **Me: Shut up, Jango.**

 **Jango: Oh, fine. (Walks away, muttering.) Spoilsport.**

 **By the way, I got the life bound inanimate object idea from Fairy Tail. Specifically, the Iced Shell technique. It originated when I tried to explain why the iced shell was indestructable and could not be melted, and as far as I knew, the ONLY difference was the technique, and the use of the person's body. Living ice. So I thought that idea was nice, and I proceeded to take that into account so that magic that binds life energy into inanimate objects makes them indestructable, at obvious cost.**

 **Me: Anyways... I have my doubts that too many of you expected this kind of ending. And everything's going to have to shift gears now. Everything is going to be very complicated for some of our favorite characters. Have fun actually getting to read TAC2 and New Age next. I don't think this counts as a cliffhanger. I'm... Pretty sure it doesn't count as a cliffhanger... Pretty sure...**


	10. Chapter Ten

**Hello, everybody. Welcome back to The Kitsune and the Jackal. Let's just jump into reviews because I'm finding myself working really slowly on this A/N for some reason. Here we go.**

 **The concept of finding a loophole is going to be pretty important, PokeGamma54. There is going to be some explanation regarding that, of course.**

 **Phillip, I think everybody likes having their suspicions confirmed. Now, I really didn't like writing Malvolio's destruction. It was a story necessity at this point. In fact, writing this chapter took a few more days than it might have done, possibly because I had to deal with it. I am aware that stories cannot be all good... Moving on.**

 **I respond to thoughtful questions with thoughtful answers, AGuyWithNoSkills. There is no favoritism here. Simply put, if I have a lot to say about a question, then I will say a lot. I do not mean to make you feel uncomfortable, but I do wish that the questions that make me think in regards to my story would keep coming, because they really help me iron out things.**

 **Considering mistakes, rest assured I will be fine with that. I do not intend to give you grief over an error. Furthermore, nothing can be done directly to you by anyone if you make a mistake in a review. This is the internet. There is no real chance to take, just the choice regarding your actions in the first place.**

 **For example: You were interpreting Christy's band. In the previous chapter(s?) the band was described and entitled as Christy's 'Will'. And yes, it is something like a mind-body link like you described, but the word 'will' was meant to be taken literally. While your statement was not entirely accurate, it was hardly a problem to attempt to gently correct you.**

 **And the orders that would affect Christy are for the most part the very direct type of orders. It's rather complicated, but I should let the story expand upon it further. Sorry for giving a long response to you directly after you claimed it was unnecessary. The review gave me some things to think about, and I appreciated that.**

 **Hey, Zlaxe. Glad you're back.**

 **Jango: (Steps in with a notepad and pencil) I'm not late, am I?**

 **Me: I don't think it's possible for you to be late.**

 **Jango: Wow. That was kinda harsh for you. Still moping about writing yourself into a corner and having to kill Malvolio?**

 **Me: Shut up. Anyways, I do want to expand on Raina's personality more. As for the rest... I need to let you all read and hopefully enjoy the story.**

 **Amber: (Walks in quickly) Sorry I'm late-... Okay. Uh... You guys go get some fresh air while the readers, well... Read.**

* * *

 **Chapter Ten: Tear and Repair**

One thought was beginning to race through my mind second by second as I sat there.

 _What the actual fuck does_ _ **trust**_ _mean anymore?_

Apparently, it no longer meant anything.

I couldn't gather the force of will to even move anymore. I just wanted to sit here and cry. That was all I even had the capacity to do right now. I felt broken.

...How long have I sat there?

There was talking around me. Christy was led away by Armalita, who started talking to her. I had not shifted forms to make use of my better ears at all. I didn't bother. I didn't even want to know what speech Armalita was giving Christy right now. Positive or negative, constructive or just to help her mood. I didn't want to know.

Suddenly, I felt a hand on my arm. It was cool. Temperature wise, I mean. It had soft fur on it, but it had to be metal.

I slowly managed to stop choking on my tears long enough to ask: "...What do you… What do you need, Cobalt?"

My eyes were still closed, so I couldn't see his expression. "Well…" he trailed off for a moment "I figured… I mean… You looked like you needed somebody around. I don't know… What else I should do. What do you need?"

Damn, this kid was kind. I would have figured that his pretty intense self-preservation would have kept him away from me, but this selfless act was how he reacted to someone crying. I couldn't push him away.

But what did I **actually** need? I was so utterly confused and felt so immensely betrayed that I feared nothing would actually help me. I sighed slowly. "I don't know…" I admitted. "I honestly have no clue what I need-"

I cut myself off, which was something that he noticed. Some things had begun to click in my mind.

The first: I was alive. Christy was stuck in this mess because she had foolishly tried to keep me alive. While my being alive would have been nice normally, her actions directly resulted in this… Slavery.

The second: it was my life itself that kept this band attached to my arm and indestructible. That meant I could not get the band off without dying.

The third: I was feeling anger and resentment flash through my system over and over, growing and twisting within my soul. I wasn't trying to squash this feeling, either. Perhaps it was the result of my actions earlier today. Murdering the white wolf Taikan.

I had to do something. I had to solve it. I had a lot of ways to solve it. But as I opened my eyes and snuck a glance at everyone in the room, Armalita was occupying Christy, so neither saw me, but Cobalt and Raina met my eyes. I couldn't risk the safety of any of these people, and I couldn't risk Christy's innocence by bringing her along on an assassination mission.

"...I do know what I need." I declared slowly. The tears kept falling, however, as the rest of my thoughts still circulated around what Christy had done to me.

I closed my eyes again. "Just… I need time first. Thanks for being considerate, Cobalt."

He whispered a 'you're welcome', but soon I heard footsteps and the metal-furred teenager scrambled back. I hardly had time to react before I was struck in the face by someone's hand, their claws cutting into my cheek as I was thrown to the side.

"Holy shit, **stop crying**." Raina commanded "Seriously, it's freaking **pathetic**. And you're soaking the carpet. **My** carpet"

I didn't say anything as I stood up, rubbing my eyes with my arm. When my eyes were clear, I opened them fully and immediately got struck on the other cheek, crashing to the floor again. "That one was just because I felt like it" she explained, licking my blood off of her claws "besides, nobody can pull off whisker marks on one side of their face only."

As I stood up again. She put a mirror in front of my face that she procured from somewhere, showing me what she meant. She had indeed carved shallow but painful marks on my face that would not be unlike whiskers. They were too shallow to leave scars, but they did bleed. They were bleeding enough that the blood was dripping into the carpet. She didn't mind about that, I suppose. Blood didn't bother the tortured sadist.

I sighed softly. "When Christy takes you home, I need you to try and let her help you and recondition you. She's going to need you."

Raina didn't respond, so I turned, scanning the room. I sighed when I saw that Christy and Armalita had heard me with their excellent hearing. I continued scanning the room, not to be deterred, until I saw the closet. I was going to have to walk out of here unopposed, and what better way to do that than with a disguise?

"Gabriel?" Christy asked, uncertainty flooding her tone. I didn't think I could speak to her without breaking down again, and this time, the girl would try to comfort me herself.

Instead, I walked over to the closet and flung it open, viewing the mostly black colored clothing inside. Most farmers were for females only; However, one was just what I needed.

"Naughty boy, rooting through a girl's wardrobe." Raina teased even as I whipped out a long black cloak decorated with red triangles throughout. The hood would serve me well. Although, I wondered how Raina was supposed to use said hood. Her wicked sharp horn-blade could not be good for it.

"I need this," I said, flipping it over myself and shifted while I did so. It had a red string at the chest above my spike and I tied that together. I then tied a lower string. Now the shadows covered what the cloak did not as I piled the hood very low over my head. I closed my covered eyes and used my aura senses.

"Gabriel, what are you doing?" Christy asked, sounding a little frightened.

"Doing my mission," I replied shortly.

"What?"

"Having the cloak and the trench coat on at the same time, huh?" Raina commented "Don't die from a heat stroke before you get yourself killed in actual battle. That would be embarrassing."

"Wait!" Christy exclaimed even as I started walking towards the door. She darted in front of me, keeping herself between me and the exit.

"I'm going alone, Christy," I said, making to walk around her. Her tails spread and elongated to be in my way. "I'm not dragging you into **my** mess." I insisted.

"It's **our** mess, Gabriel." Christy returned.

"No. It isn't." I tried to push past her tails. Instead, they wrapped around me and she pulled me close to her.

"Gabriel, please-" Christy started, but I waved my hand quickly and cut her off.

"Please don't." I interrupted, remembering at the last moment to add a 'please' to avoid accidentally controlling her. Barely. This is why I needed to go at it alone. I was more prone to making mistakes than I had initially realized if I was already almost making mistakes.

I continued walking, her tails stretching out as I attempted to pull away from Her and to the door. She stopped me, but didn't say anything for a moment. She opened her mouth, and I waited.

"I want to stay with you."

My eyes narrowed. "Tough," I replied harshly. I managed to ignore the hurt on her face. "You've marked me with the only thing that keeps you enslaved." I held up my arm bound by Christy's will. "Thus, the only way to keep you safe is for me to go off without you."

Armalita gave a quick nod in the background, and I continued. "The band attracts war supporters, according to you. **But** , it does not mean that those supporters will know who it belongs to. Something you should have **thought about before you forced me to wear it!** "

My words had escalated into a scream as I found another reason to be very angry. I turned away, pulling her tails off of myself, beginning to walk to the door. To add to my disguise, I created aura flames and flowed them over my borrowed cloak, covering the red triangles that decorated the black surface at the sides of the hood and the rims of the material and making them look like sources of blue flame. As an afterthought, I created a large tail out of aura flames to add to the image. It was unlikely that my disguise would be uncovered as myself.

"Gabriel, you sound like you're going to run to your death!" Christy shouted, taking a step towards me.

"I am, interestingly enough. Then you'll be free for the rest of your life." I replied. Her eyes widened and she shot her tails at me.

As Christy pulled me back, she screamed: "I won't let you!"

I remained facing the door despite being less than a meter away from Christy now. "...Armalita." I said. "You know what to do."

Armalita looked grim, but she stepped up and gripped Christy's tails in her hands, giving her a glare and distracting her while I walked straight out of the door.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I rushed to grab him once more, but Gabriel, barely recognizable, slipped the door closed before my tails could reach them. "Armalita!" I protested, bracing myself to run.

"Calm down." my old friend ordered, stepping in front of me and raising a hand in the universal 'stop' gesture. The blue, white, and black wolf taikan had a stern expression, but I was having none of it.

"I need to talk to Gabriel." I growled "I need to change his mind. He's going to get himself killed!"

Armalita's gaze did not change. "I am aware. There must be a better solution than his death in a great distance from you. But inside here? Not a good idea. There is bound to be yelling, and we will continue to get visitors that pass by. We will follow him outside and deal with him there."

I blinked and calmed. "Okay. Let's get out of here." I said shakily. "But…"

Armalita had turned away, but as I began to look down, she turned back to me. "But?" she prompted me.

I slowly sat down. "Do you think… Gabriel's ever going to trust me again?"

I thought I have never felt so defeated before. Armalita's complete silence in the face of my question… That was too much. I promptly broke down and sobbed uncontrollably.

How long it lasted, I was unaware, but when my sister promptly slammed a certain gold object onto my head, I was finally able to pick myself up. "Jeez. I just gave your ex-boyfriend lip for crying all over my carpet. Don't you start on it." Raina grumbled, flipping the gold object in her hand.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

Sweeping through the place was an utter breeze. Not a single person stood in the way of the big scary guy in the black cloak covered in blue flames with the tail made of flames waving behind me. Especially not after I used that tail to smash a common guard against the wall and use a growling voice to demand where 'the culprit' had gone.

"I-I don't know! I swear!" the guard exclaimed.

"I am aware that he ran through this corridor earlier."

"Everything's in a panic after… After…"

"Bah…" I forced a grumble, dropping him to the floor. "To use the power I myself wield for such a crime… I will find him."

"S-sir?"

It was almost laughable how gullible the common person was. "There is only one difference between me and that boy."

"A-and that is?"

I walked away from him. "I have one more kill under my belt than he does," I growled in reply, and said no more as I continued walking.

" _Okay, Pause, you are making a huge mistake"_

It took me a moment to realize that the voice in my head was, in fact, my own. " _Shut up"_ I jabbed at my conscience.

" _Is it really okay to give up on her after she made one mistake?"_

I shook my head. It was one, avoidable thing, yes, but it was a permanent enslavement. It was the biggest mistake she could have made, the biggest betrayal of my own trust in her. Could I forgive her?

With time, maybe, in any other circumstance. However… In this case, there was only one way to truly fix the problem. And that was to leave her behind so she need never fear being controlled again.

I walked along the halls until I found where we had entered through the odd skylight. There were people watching it. "Stand aside." I ordered "The intruder's equipment was up there. I must investigate."

They complied as I leapt up to the window and pushed the window off of where it had been resting, gently setting it aside. Both my pack and Christy's pack was there. Not bothering to turn, I said: "The intruders will remain in the city for some time to gather supplies. I will find them."

I then checked the packs, finding a decent amount of food within them. Even if my cooking was pitiful, I would have to get through it. To maintain appearances, I used the tail I created with my aura flames to pick up the items and walk away with them.

* * *

I dropped from the wall onto the grass that separated myself and a sparse forest. Getting lost in here would not happen. I would have to keep up appearances for quite some time. Or, possibly, I could just keep the appearance from this point forward. I doubted Raina even cared that the cloak was no longer in her closet; I doubted she wore anything but those sleeves on her forearms and legs beneath the knees. I didn't want to think about Raina.

There was something terribly wrong, but I could not place it. Was I walking in the wrong direction? Maybe I was moving too slowly. But something was definitely wrong. I was anxiously looking back and forth as I walked, as if looking for something. It was just empty space and trees that I was seeing. What was I supposed to be seeing?

" _Alright, Captain Oblivious."_

Oh.

Holy shit, had I become so dependant on Christy's presence that I was going nuts just by **not** being around her? How needy was I being!?

...No matter. It's best for Christy to keep this band as far away as possible-

I stopped. I had walked well out of view of the compound by now, but that did not mean I wasn't being followed. It figured. My ears twitched as I heard my name, and I sighed, irritated. I didn't need any reminders right now. It was hard enough as it was to just go… Do my job.

That was before I had to sidestep a nasty looking needle that embedded itself in the tree next to me. "Really, Armalita?" I asked, exasperated.

"You have my respect." the wolf taikan proclaimed as she appeared from behind a few trees "But you are making a mistake nonetheless."

"And who are you to judge?" I asked calmly.

"I have about as much right to make that decision as you do." Armalita proclaimed as she walked forward.

I didn't have the heart to ask what that meant. I knew Armalita would have a scorching response to give me and I wanted none of that. "...You haven't changed to anything more decent." I finally declared, crossing my arms within the cloak.

"And you compensate by putting more clothing on?"

"This was to look imposing. You'll be surprised how gullible your common guards are."

"And I'm sure you'll be surprised how gullible **your** common guards are." Armalita retorted.

I acknowledged this with a nod. "True. I mean, I've pulled stuff over on them before, but I haven't tested it to that degree. I guess I'm going to find out."

" **We** are going to find out."

Christy was running up behind me, her tails streaming behind her. I turned to face her, feeling immensely conflicted. I couldn't let her come with me. Deep down, I wanted her to come with me, but if I let her come, she would be in danger from my mistakes. And just as deep as my need for her to be nearby, the knowledge of the betrayal raged and warred with the former feeling.

"I'm not discussing this." I decided, trying to walk away.

"You're just going to run?" Christy asked.

"Yes."

I felt a hand on my shoulder. She had appeared so suddenly I froze, and then Raina pulled me around. "You're going the wrong way again, idiot," she smirked at me. It seemed like I was going to have to have this conversation after all.

Christy walked up to me. "You…" she whispered, her face soft. Then, the soft expression turned into a coy smile. "You look bloody **ridiculous** with that thing on!" she exclaimed, gripping the cloak and throwing it straight off me. I let the aura flames die away as Raina caught the cloak.

"I'm not in the mood, Christy." I narrowed my eyes at her.

She sighed. "I know." she whispered, "But I need you to talk to me."

"About?" I asked, and then shifted and held up a palm in front of her to make her pause. "About why I'm angry? I'm angry because you sentenced yourself and myself to your slavery, something I wanted and needed no part in. About why I'm leaving you behind? I'm leaving you behind because it's the only way I can possibly avoid making any mistakes and causing you unnecessary grief. About how I am going to get myself killed? Maybe I am. That's fine. Because the enchantment causes war supporters to find it, but does not tell them who they are controlling, that is a loophole. It means if I go and die in my own country, and you and your friends are at your home from this point forward, you will permanently be safe, because some random bugger isn't going to just happen upon your home."

She opened her maw, but my glare sharpened. "About how you need me? Yeah, okay. You'll get over it. About how I might be doing this because I feel I have nothing but instead I have you? Well." I held up my arm with Christy's Will stuck on it. "That should be answer enough. About how I can't do it alone? Honestly, I probably can. I go there, pretend to have come home and request a meeting with Boreas to clear some things up. The dipshit'll never see it coming. Then, the war has a chance of being over. And finally, I assume, about how I need support through all this."

I turned away from all of them. "Yes, I need support if I want to remain sane, walking through the forest with the sole intention to kill someone. However, that support cannot be from you, Christy. We both know this. Furthermore, I will not drag the people you care about into this. That means that none of you can come with me."

There was a rustling sound, and Cobalt burst into the area, breathing heavily.

We all paused as I looked at him. He might be an alright travel companion, and kind, but he had no battle experience. "It would not be right to take him into a war zone," I added.

Christy put her hand on my arm slowly, as if she was afraid to approach me. She couldn't find anything to say for several minutes. She just looked into my eyes.

"...I… I don't… Care if you make a mistake." She stuttered slowly.

I jolted back. "Christy! What are you saying!?"

"It's not going to hurt me if I occasionally lose control because of some mistake," Christy said, pulling me into a one-sided hug. "I don't care."

"I do," I said flatly.

"But they'll just be mistakes." Christy asserted.

"Mistakes I cannot live with," I growled, pushing her away slowly, but firmly. "Please go home."

"No."

I raised an eyebrow.

"You can be a downer as much as you want." Raina piped up "but my big sister's probably just going to follow you."

I clenched my fists. "I won't allow it," I growled dangerously.

"Tough," Christy replied, her gaze just as stern as mine.

"Christy, please-"

"Please, please, please," Christy repeated over and over. "That's the one and only reason I haven't done as you asked, Gabe."

It took me a minute to get what she was implying, and I could feel my fury explode inside of me. "How dare you!?" I shouted, startling the Kitsune bad enough to make her fall over backward. My aura flames flared greatly around me as my focus directed itself upon Christy and Christy only. My paws still clenched, I stepped forward.

"All of a sudden, since you put this band on me against my will, you've been acting as though it's somehow alright." I said, looming above her "And I think it's my job to tell you that that's not how it works. We both know that you are trying to act in my benefit when you pretend that you haven't somehow just thrown away your entire goddamn life! And if that's your way of helping me, you're doing a terrible job at it. I never wanted this!"

I breathed out heavily, my chest heaving as I suddenly had to place my paw on the tree next to me to stabilize myself. I shuddered. I had just screamed at my best friend. Covering my eyes with my other paw, I found myself releasing what was honestly my most pitiful whimper of all time. Even more pitiful than the time one of the elites in my country beat me down in a sparring session.

"...I never wanted this" I repeated, this time in a faint whisper. I stepped back a few feet, trying to compose myself. It wasn't working. My eyes were threatening to leak tears **again**. To grow so attached to someone only to have them just throw everything away…

"What else could I have done?"

I tried to suppress my anger. "All sorts of things…" I explained. "You really could have hidden it and then just run away. Because they wouldn't have known it was for you, and you would just have to not be anywhere near there. Then you don't have to worry about it, for one. For another, you could have maybe just fought off anyone who might come for it because again, it just draws them, not prepared them. Yet another, you could have just let me die. That way, Malvolio would not be dead, and you would have Raina back and the two of you would be home free. Any of those honestly would have worked just fine."

Christy started to open her mouth as she shakily stood up, but I gently closed my fingers around her muzzle and closed it again. "I'm not going to submit, Christy." I declared. "I murdered someone today. I took away an entire future from a man who may have eventually learned to see reason under the right circumstances, or have been led by someone who values life and taught as such. None of us will know."

Christy pulled my hand off of her muzzle. "You can't get rid of me, Gabriel." She told me. "I'll stay with you for as long as we both live."

I frowned. That sounded suspiciously like marriage vows. Apparently, Christy realized this as well and blushed furiously. "That's… That's…" She stammered.

I turned away from her, sighing. "I can't convince you to go home." I realized, almost to myself.

"I'm here to stay." Christy nodded.

"I suppose big sis'll drag me along too." Raina shrugged

"I… I would like to come too." Cobalt decided "it's probably safer around you anyways."

We all looked at Armalita.

"You need to keep an eye on your sister," I stated.

"Yes, I do." Armalita nodded. She stepped forward and gave Christy a quick hug. "Be safe, my friend".

"You got it." Christy returned the hug. "Keep your sister safe, okay?"

"Certainly."

Armalita turned to leave, and started to disappear into the leaves flowing in the wind.

"Aww, that's so sweet!"

Everything froze, and everyone slowly turned to stare.

"How…" Christy started

"The…" Cobalt continued

"Heck?" I finished.

Armalita just facepalmed.

A brown blur rushed over and tackled Armalita, large fluffy tail wagging furiously. "Big sis!" the taikan exclaimed while Armalita skillfully avoided the flailing tail and disengaged her sister.

"Sandra." the wolf taikan greeted the feline, impossibly calm under the circumstances. The feline taikan, however, had already ditched her sister to run at Christy with outstretched arms and a big smile on her face.

Christy's tails shot into the trees above, grabbed a thick branch, and pulled her up and away. She really didn't need to be drunk right now. I didn't need her to be drunk either. She might do something stupid like asking me to make her do something. I suddenly took about six steps away from Sandra as the girl pouted up at the treeline. If she got **me** drunk again… How long would my judgment last?

Sandra was easily the most dangerous of all of us now.

"Armalita… I would feel more comfortable if you took Sandra home." I stated.

"Aww… I wanna go on an adventure!" the taikan exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air at the final word. Armalita sighed hopelessly.

"If she is set on something, I will have a very difficult time changing her mind." Armalita said, "It appears as though I am coming along with you after all."

I winced. "Five taikans and myself walking straight to the compound? That's not going to happen." I muttered. Then a growled and kicked a rock. "Dammit, this is why you all should have left. Now we have to do exactly what we did for this particular compound, and there's more of us."

I discovered that my voice had attracted the attention of the dreaded superhuman drunk. "This was supposed to be a serious conversation," I complained as I too leapt into the nearest tree.

"Way to break the gloom cloud, Sandra." Raina gave the drunk a thumbs up.

Sandra stopped moving after me to turn towards Raina so fast she almost fell right over. She gave the head of Taika's torture division a salute with a big smile on her face, before promptly getting distracted by a butterfly.

I considered just bailing. There were enough distractions right now that I could probably make a clean getaway, and Armalita would be too busy with Sandra to track me.

But I felt a familiar brush against my head as I thought that, and Christy quickly pulled me to the ground as she leapt out of her own tree. She stalked up to me and slammed her palms onto my shoulders. Shivering, I recognized the fierce look she had; That was the look girls make when a guy has just made a terrible mistake.

"Don't you **dare**." she growled "Don't. You. Dare."

I opened my mouth to say something, but her tail curled around my muzzle and kept it closed just like I had done to her before. "Gabriel." Christy said, almost desperately "I did not go through months of living with you and I did not throw everything I had into a game of chance just to let you walk away from me. Do you understand!?"

She released my shoulders as I shifted to get my mouth out of her tail. Her hands found the base of my cheeks. "I can't live with myself if you get hurt. I **can't**. I need you."

I stared at her, feeling my heart lift at her words. The war in my mind escalated tenfold as I tried to balance the care I still had for her and the sentence she had given the both of us. I wanted to resolve the conflict.

Evenly matched, the emotions fought on. If I tried to envision it, I could imagine an arena of pure darkness, the depths of the mind, with versions of myself trying to beat the other down.

" _I need her just as much as she needs me!"_ one said

" _She betrayed everything I stood for!"_ the other screamed, enraged.

" _She thought she had no other choice!"_

" _Because she was too stupid to think it through properly!"_

" _She's grown up her whole life thinking that she would someday have to give it to somebody! It was the obvious choice to her!"_

" _That does not make it acceptable!"_

" _Maybe not! But she needs us and we still need her!"_

" _I don't care! I'll die first!"_

" _That's stupid!"_

" _I know! But it will keep her safe if she-"_

The first interrupted the other, angrier one: " _Idiot! She's coming along with us anyways! Dying won't accomplish anything anymore!"_

" _I thought you were supposed to be the calm one!"_

" _Calm?_ _ **Calm!? I'm completely calm!**_ " The one advocating for Christy's eye twitched.

" _You're just crazy! You think you can ever trust her again!?"_

" _Maybe I do! This is the first time she-"_

Now the angry one interrupted: " _She broke our trust on the single most important choice she could ever make!"_

" _Shut up! Anger has no place in decision making!"_

" _And yet I'm here anyways! What are you going to do about it!?"_

In my mental image of the two, they slammed heads.

" _ **Grrr!**_ "

" _ **Grrr!**_ "

I grunted aloud. "...I have a headache…" I muttered truthfully. Christy's tails flew over my head, and she blinked, probably seeing what I was seeing.

"Why would you… It's a boy thing isn't it." Christy's question disappeared in favor of a deadpan statement.

I sighed. "Christy… I need you to promise me something."

"Anything." Christy nodded.

"Please, if you come with me… Please, you have to let me try and find loopholes in this magic. Please don't complain or try to dissuade me." I brought my head up so that the taikan could see my eyes, so that she could see the resolve "I don't know what to think or feel anymore, whether to be furious or relieved that you're coming with me, or anything. I don't know anything that's going on inside my head anymore, except for one single thing."

I gripped her shoulders. "Just like I can't stop you from coming with me, you can't stop me from trying to free you. So don't… Please don't try to stop me"

Christy slowly nodded. "Okay." she murmured eventually. "And Gabriel?"

"Yes, Christy?"

"Whether you decide to hate me or not… You still deserve an apology" she clenched her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. Tears were coming from her eyes again. "You were right… I could have just done something with the band like give it to someone who I would never meet again or just defend it with the power I have. I didn't… I didn't even think about it properly. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve this."

I closed my eyes and nodded, before separating myself from Christy. "We need to get a move on. There are a few ground rules I am setting if you all are coming with me."

Everyone turned to listen. "Cobalt, stay out of conflicts. I know you don't want to fight, and neither do any of us, but we have experience. Your skin and fur may be metal, but I am not putting that to chance." I began.

As he meekly nodded, I turned to Armalita. "I need you to find a way to keep Sandra a good distance from me personally. In a drunken state, the chances of me mistakenly ordering Christy to do something are far, far greater."

Armalita looked to her sister, who was having trouble standing straight. "I will accomplish this task to the best of my ability." she declared.

"And Raina." I continued.

"What's with the dramatic pause, buddy boy?" she asked.

"Put that cloak on. I'm not going to be forced to watch you walk around with almost nothing on if you're going to be traveling with us."

Christy and Armalita sweatdropped. Raina just flashed her claws. "I could always gut you instead," she said in a teasing tone.

"Put on the cloak."

"Ugh, killjoy." she swung the cloak around herself, quickly tying the two knots. This (finally) covered her breasts just enough. They were still mostly visible, but technically covered. "I reserve the right to take it off if it gets too constrictive, and if anybody tries to stop me… I'll get to see some blood."

"Fine." I nodded. "Now let's get moving."

I brought my hand up to catch the flying golden object Raina threw at me when I looked away.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

"Ow!" Gabriel yelped as he caught the gold object. The little switch had slammed into the soft part of his palm. Sharp or not, getting hit by a high velocity, small sized metal object doesn't feel good. I hoped the pain was distracting him from the freaky battle that was going on inside his head. I mean he literally turned it from a simple emotional conflict into his mental image of two of himself, one glowing blue and the other glowing red, shouting at each other and pummeling each other, neither seeming to be superior in strength.

As I had said before, I figured it must be a boy thing.

Gabriel didn't know what to think of me anymore; He had said so himself. It hurt, but it was as much as I could expect. A small part of me had wondered if he was going to make me do something simply out of spite, or just order me to go home and bring my other friends in his anger. It was a part of me I mentally obliterated on the spot because the thought was ridiculous, but for a guilty moment, I genuinely wondered it.

After Sandra's freak appearance, the tension had all but evaporated for just a moment. A single, blessed moment in which we all panicked and thought as one to escape the feline. Granted, our new friend Cobalt had not escaped, but he hadn't drawn attention to himself. I realized that we needed to explain why he should keep away later.

But I was grateful for Sandra's presence. If she hadn't just **appeared** like she had, which I struggled to explain, and let's be honest, I won't be able to explain, then Armalita would have to leave us to go back, and I was not keen on walking away from my old friend. Considering that Gabriel did not want to talk to me very much right now, and needed to sort things out in his head, I could talk to her, maybe get some advice.

Then my thoughts turned to Raina, and another wave of grief floated through me. It hurt to see her talk about seeing blood with that smirk on her face. Her love of causing others pain was so difficult to watch. This was what Raina was now. Treated to brainwashing, taught to be sadistic and to love her job as the head of the torture division. It was only something we could solve through showing her the value of love and compassion, and gradual reconditioning.

She turned her head to meet my eyes that were on her. I shivered. She had now demonstrated that impeccable awareness several times. She saw that I was creeped out, and gave me a feral grin, enjoying every bit of it.

I wished I could talk to her without her turning everything I say into something against me with that everlasting smirk. It was like she was playing a game when I tried to talk to her.

I started checking the pack that Gabriel had dropped as he had begun to walk. It was mine. He ha not removed anything, so my cooking materials were out of his cooking-inept paws. We had gathered supplies on our own, moving fast enough to be able to catch up to Gabriel afterward.

Armalita's pack held navigational equipment and other tools, as well as food for the journey. She had literally raided the food storage to gather enough, as we would be traveling more than a hundred miles through a war zone, meaning we would not be able to restock for quite a while.

Cobalt's pack was very large and also full of food, both the kind that had to be prepared and the quick, nutritional food products that could simply be eaten. If either of those two had chosen to stay behind, I could have carried the packs easily using my tails.

In other words, we were all set. We just needed to give Sandra all of the personal space. Raina hadn't brought anything, but we would still have the necessary supplies. 'All I need is my claws' Raina had said.

I think it just hurt more that this particular journey started not with jokes and care and conversation, but with a solemn silence that made the day's travels seem extremely slow and tedious.

By the time the sun started setting, I really had run out of energy. It was like it was being drained from me.

"It's about dinner time," Gabriel announced. I winced at his tone; it wasn't angry anymore, but it was..: almost weak. Like he was just tired of everything. After all, I had been the only friend he had aside from his lookalike, who only seems to appear now in his dream. He must feel so alone…

"I'll fix it up-" I began to offer, using my tail to open my pack, but then Armalita stopped me.

"You rest." She ordered, "you've had a long day."

Cobalt seemed to take the initiative and as Armalita told me to rest, he started pulling snacks out of his bag to serve as dinner. I nodded and slowly stepped over to a tree, letting myself sink to rest against it.

I watched as Armalita gestured for Cobalt to toss some of the food over to her as he arranged the rations. He began to walk over to hand them to the girl instead, seeming to hesitate.

He seemed very uncomfortable around Armalita. It couldn't e fear, no way. When he was afraid, he hid, and cowered. This was more… Awkward.

"...So." I began once Cobalt had gone to eat near Gabriel. "You've got an admirer."

"It certainly seems that way." Armalita nodded.

"What do you think?" I asked.

Armalita leaned back against our tree casually, taking a bite out of one of the food bars that were a part of our dinner. "He is… Nice." She decided "Very insecure, and easily spooked, but I get the sense that he needs protection. When he becomes frightened, I am struck by the urge to protect him, or to calm him."

"I get it." I nodded. "Armalita…"

"Yes, he will forgive you."

I stared. "How on earth did you know my question?"

"You're rather predictable." She explained ruthlessly, making me sweatdrop. "But as for my response, your friend has to be one of the most stubborn people I have met. If anyone has the tenacity to find a loophole to the magic you are trapped under, he'll find it. I learned plenty about his stubbornness when I battled him."

My eyes softened. "That makes me feel a lot better, but…"

"You are worried that he will not trust you the same again?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"This action you've taken, right or wrong, was easily the most painful thing you ever could do to him." Armalita pointed out, which felt like she was hitting my emotions directly with a hammer, "when he defeats this enchantment, and I believe he will, there is nothing else he has to worry about. I believe that the two of you will be back on track soon enough."

"Back… On track?"

My old friend sighed. "You can register Cobalt being shy around me, but you cannot recognize your own emotions?"

"My-my own-"

"You care for him. A lot. It is by far the most obvious thing I have ever seen." Armalita interrupted "But you are afraid that everything is going to crumble around you because of this mistake."

I looked over at Gabriel, who was talking rather casually with Cobalt. He was showing the metal-furred teenager the little gold object that we had always kept with us. "They seem to be getting along," I commented eventually.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

Damn. It was almost like watching a puppy looking at something it didn't understand. The way he stared at it with big eyes that made his blue eyes seem, dare I say it, cute in the way a puppy is cute. "So…" I murmured "You don't remember much, right?"

"Yeah…" his reply was short, and his eyes were half-closed now.

"You remember three years of working in that surveillance room, but Raina kept telling you that you were around for ten years, huh?" I pressed.

"Yep, that's about what I've said." he nodded. "So I guess they did something or I did something and I had… Whatever it's called."

"Amnesia?"

"Yeah, that." Cobalt confirmed "Either I hit my head on something or they did it to me for whatever reason. Maybe I committed a crime or something and they just decided they couldn't trust me and wiped me. I don't know. Nobody speaks to me other than Armalita or Prosecutor, and now you… The rest just kind of ignore me."

I leaned back against the tree the two of us shared, looking about real quick. Armalita and Christy were watching us. Raina was eating. Sandra was also eating and taking repeated drinks from a canteen that seemed to be tied around her waist. In fact, she kept guzzling liquid out of it so often that she should have finished the bottle three times over by now, but it apparently still had liquid, likely alcohol, in it.

If it kept her distracted, that was fine. I sighed. "I would prefer being ignored to being trained as a secret weapon for a war," I said, attracting Cobalt's attention. "It's lonely, sure, but I was lonely too. And at the end, if I hadn't run away, I would have been sent to my death, whether I killed anyone or not."

"...Sorry," Cobalt looked away.

"Don't be." I clapped his shoulder with my hand. "I'm just whining. You shouldn't have had to go through any of that either."

"...Okay." he eventually replied, and continued eating for a while. I shifted after a moment of thought, recognizing that my human form was going to be rather conspicuous if we were found during the night.

"Can I ask you something?" I requested.

"Uh… Yeah."

"What would you do in my position?"

The cobaltum taikan's eyes tracked to the band on my arm. "...I would probably do what you tried to do…" he murmured, looking away "I'd try to run."

The both of us sighed as we considered the options we would have. "It sounds cliche to say, but all this… It's just not fair." I complained.

"...what's cliche about it?"

Right. The guy had amnesia, "it's just been used in a lot of media right after a tragedy of some sort." I explained.

"Okay."

Three years. This guy was about my age, but he had three years with of memory and constant seclusion from the others around him. He would know how to talk and think for himself, and probably was capable of being pretty mature, but he was still stuck with some childlike qualities. "Listen." I said "I know that all of this is probably a little confusing and frightening. But we'll help you. I promise."

"You promise?" Cobalt looked conflicted, looking downwards. "I… I don't want to cause trouble…"

I rubbed the top of his head. "You're going to be fine," I told him. "Besides, you get lots of chances to talk to Armalita."

He jolted, blushing furiously in an instant, and I chuckled. "After watching her on surveillance for years, I can see you developing a crush."

"She'll hear you!" He hissed, glancing at Armalita and back at me.

"So if you want that to become something real. You have to talk to her first. Get to know her, let her get to know you. You'll be fine."

He kept glancing between the two of us. Christy and Armalita were still talking to one another. "You think so?"

"I know so. Maybe you'll have a better time than I have. I'm pretty sure you will." I laughed bitterly "I don't know how my relationship could have gone worse. We were good friends, this happens, and suddenly, she's acting like she needs me even more than before. I don't get it, but as soon as I can free her, as soon as I find a loophole in the magic, then I'll figure it out."

"Yo."

Cobalt scrambled to get away from the voice, now hiding behind the tree we had been leaning on. "It's not nice to scare him like that, Raina." I admonished the girl, who thankfully seemed to have decided to keep her cloak on.

"I know." She smirked, "but it's such fun, isn't it, **Cobalt**?"

"Leave him alone." I stood up slowly, facing Raina. She flashed her claws, wiggling her fingers as she stepped **very** close to me.

"What's wrong, buddy-boy?" She asked, "you cold?"

I was shivering, but it was because I knew what Raina could and might do to me and like she intended, I feared her even as I stood my ground. I steeled myself and looked her on the eye. "I'm afraid." I admitted with as strong a tone as I could muster "I am afraid because you really wouldn't hesitate to hurt people, even someone as innocent as Cobalt or as close to you as Christy. You scare me, Raina."

The unique Taikan chuckled seductively as she held my chin loosely with her hand. "Good." She whispered. As she turned away, her claws cut new marks into my chin before her hand was off my face.

I just turned to Cobalt, slowly pulling him from behind the tree. "You're fine," I assured him.

His round, blue eyes met my eyes. "You look… Sad."

"I am," I replied shortly.

"Why's that?"

I turned to Sandra, who had uttered the slurred words. "Because I lost."

"That isn't very specific," Cobalt noted.

"It wasn't supposed to be. Because I lost everything." I said. "Right now, I feel like I have nothing. And I can get it back, but right now, that doesn't mean a thing. Right now, I have nothing."

"You need some sleep." Armalita diagnosed "so finish your food and close your eyes."

"Yes, ma'am." I sat down again and chewed on the final remains of the food I had been given. Crossing Armalita was not something I wanted to do.

I looked towards the setting sun. Christy's home-... **Our** home was somewhere in that direction. Would we ever see it again? Or would I lose everyone here? All of a sudden, horrid images flashed through my mind. Christy being overrun by an army, trying to protect herself by making a shell out of her elongated tails. The others… Gone. And I couldn't make them let me go alone.

That was when I realized the reason they wouldn't let me go alone. Christy was seeing the same images, only… About me. There was a surge of warmth in my chest. Even though I had little value anymore, it was still my life that she cared about. Maybe that's what confused me; Her actions against me and her actions for me were done at the same time and I didn't actually know what to think.

By the time I got to sleep, I had confused myself so badly that I think I fell asleep from dizzyness rather than actually relaxing enough to fall into my dreams.

* * *

"You have a houseguest now?" I asked.

"Just hanging out with an old friend." my lookalike nodded, moving a piece on the chessboard that he sat at, alone.

I watched a piece on the black side of the board disappear and reappear elsewhere.

"...Your houseguest is creeping me the hell out." I eventually commented.

"Well?" my lookalike looked pointedly at the being covered in black flames. "Say something, why don't you."

"...Very well." the person had a surprisingly normal voice. He looked to be about the age that my lookalike appeared to be. But I could only tell from the outline of him. His body was coated in these jet-black flames that emitted no heat. All that was visible of his body was a slightly lighter gray outline of him and two glowing, purple eyes. "I had intended to analyze you more before communicating with you, but that may not be necessary-"

"Lighten up, dude." my lookalike grumbled, moving a white piece. "Check."

Another black piece underwent the instantaneous teleportation, whatever was doing that. My lookalike scowled at the board. "I apologize." the dark being closed his eyes, and the eerie feeling and the weird fear response I was feeling disappeared when they closed. "I simply do not know where to begin."

"Rather antisocial, aren't you." I deadpanned.

"...I am aware of today's events," he said simply.

"Yep, that's the guardian of Darkness for you." my lookalike rolled his eyes even as I flinched "Straight to the point, blunt, and knows everything."

"I had no choice." I defended myself immediately.

The boy shrouded in dark flames let out a sigh. "You were left with a very difficult predicament. Rest assured, I understand your choice."

"No offense, but who the fuck are you?" I pointed at him.

The dark being gave a slight nod. "I am the guardian of darkness. A sentient core, if you will, of the shadows. Many civilizations label me as Darkness, Fear, or Death."

I involuntarily shivered. "...Death." I repeated.

He looked away, and I swore he looked **uncomfortable**. "They do call me that sometimes, yes. I do not personally take the souls of the dead."

"Then why the foreboding title?"

He turned his head back to me, his eyes still thankfully closed. The purple eyes had that fear thing that I didn't like very much. "As the sentient core of darkness, I am the mind behind all types of darkness. Death itself is a form of darkness. A core of dark energy, to be precise. As such, I technically am death, along with the rest of dark energies and forms. I know the life stories of the dead the moment they die."

My thoughts turned to Malvolio instantaneously.

"His life was… Odd." Darkness elaborated. "The war was still burning, and he was initially protected against it. His family was heavily against the war for quite some time."

I shuddered at the implications. "What happened?"

"Malvolio had been raised for several years not knowing who the two sides of the war really were. And then, once, like a child would, he went for a little 'adventure'. One that brought him straight into a crowd of camping warriors, dressed for battle."

He paused, and one of the black chess pieces teleported again, and my lookalike stared at the board before facepalming. "They filled his head with propaganda and a story that they themselves had been fed that pointed to the prokopians as the cruel aggressors and the taikans as the initial defendants until full-scale war broke out. Being a child, he believed every word. Those words never left him, even as he faced his family again. And seeing them, and what they stood for… It began to enrage him. Before confusion had become anger, his brother had learned everything that Malvolio had learned."

"Hold it." I held my hands up. "That guy had a **brother**?"

"Indeed."

"Where's **he**?"

"...He is alive." Darkness told me. "He and Malvolio have been at odds for a long time. I catch glimpses of his presence from the life stories of the dead over time."

"So you don't know for sure." I summed up. "Or you do, and the truth isn't important enough for me to know."

Darkness turned his head slightly. "Checkmate," he said, and my lookalike swore under his breath. So this guy was beating my lookalike at chess without even looking? Damn. I didn't want to mess with this guy.

"...Okay." I muttered "So what's the point of this dream, huh? I figured you'd just leave me alone for a while after what I did."

The other Gabriel started putting away chess pieces. "Everyone has to make hard decisions," he said morosely. "Not everyone has the ability to make friends with everyone they meet. Trust me, the people who can do that are few and far in between, and they can be the most incredible people of all time, managing to befriend and spare even the most destructive of villains, but to expect that of everyone would just be setting the bar way too high. You and Christy got backed into a corner, and you did what you had to do to protect her."

He looked me in the eye, and gave me a gentle smile. "I know it was hard for you. I know it's always going to be hard for you to think about, but right now, you're the only person who hasn't forgiven you yet."

I looked away. "I can't forgive myself just yet." I murmured in reply.

"I know." I felt his hand on my shoulder. His reassuring gaze meeting my eyes easily. "And I know you're wondering if you can forgive Christy."

I suddenly felt weak. "She heard my plea and ignored me." I whispered, "She trashed my trust in her when she put this band on my arm."

"For that thing." My lookalike reasoned calmly. "You have to remember just how important that band is in her life. Her mother's life was destroyed because of it, and she grew up knowing that she would eventually have to choose someone."

"Psychologically, she had no choice, basically." I summed up gloomily, but something suddenly clicked in my mind. "Hang on, hang on! Christy's mother… Darkness, or whatever your actual name is in however many dozens of titles you have, there's something I really, really have to know right now!"

The enshrouded figure nodded. "I would be happy to oblige."

* * *

My eyes shot awake, instantly being scorched by the sun that was rising in the west. I scrambled to my feet and ran over to Christy, stopping a few feet from her.

The two of them ha let me wake up after the dark bloke had told me what to do. He hadn't been incredibly specific, and when I asked for further detail, he said, and you'll probably think: 'figures…', that my lookalike had dissuaded him from explaining further for a reason he preferred would remain undisclosed.

But I stopped for a moment to think before I did something rash like grab her and shake her awake or worse: tell her to wake up and accidentally order her to do something. Christy remained sound asleep.

Armalita though, she had an eye open and was keeping a careful eye on me. If I had actually acted so violently, I might have died from the underdressed wolf's needles or her trident.

"If you're going to dress so scandalously, I should be the one eyeing you suspiciously." I shot at her before getting on one knee in front of the Kitsune sleeping peacefully, sitting against the tree. She looked absolutely adorable, her yellow ear twitching and her eyes still closed.

I gently put my hands on her shoulders and squeezed lightly. "Christy," I called very quietly. "I know it's early, but-"

One of her tails snaked around and flicked me under the nose, tickling me and causing me to sneeze. The loud noise caused Christy to yelp and wake up, realizing right away that I was directly above her.

"G-Gabriel!?" She asked, her cheeks starting to turn red.

"Uh… Sorry." I muttered in reply "but I just got some **major** advice from my lookalike and his friend."

* * *

Even though Sandra was still sawing logs, everyone else was awake and paying attention to my explanation. Christy had tears in her eyes.

"He… He knows my mother?"

I looked Christy in the eyes. "Not personally, but he knows her life story because she died." I corrected her calmly "but he was very clear: your mother had forgiven your father, and she had never lost hope that the both of you, you and Raina, would find happiness in life."

Christy was effectively silenced while she absorbed this, so I moved on. "I was given a key bit of information." I continued. "Christy's mother was forced using the band she herself was connected to to use 'every counter she could **think** of to any loopholes in the magic, as well as the obvious ones'. But that's the obvious part. What the dark bloke that accompanied my lookalike in that dream said that was really significant was that she intentionally kept her mind blank during the process."

Armalita understood instantly. "She would not have created counters to the more obscure, vague, or complicated orders that could allow Christy to disobey orders that came afterward." She nodded. "I feel I could have learned a lot from Christy's mother."

"...pfft…" Raina suddenly interrupted, covering her mouth with her hand. "Happiness? Come on. I didn't know that dear old mother was such a disgusting optimist."

"Raina!" Christy exclaimed

"That was uncalled for." I remarked, "stick to smirking and making jokes for now, would you, Raina?"

"Eh, whatever."

"The point is…" I got back on track "that I can do this. I can actually manage to free you from this slavery. For some reason, he told me to start with simple commands. I said that they would be more likely to fail, but he was insistent. I trust him."

Christy nodded, her eyes still flicking over to her sister occasionally.

"Jeez… The other guy, though…" Cobalt muttered, "he sounds scary as hell."

"One thing." Armalita's gaze turned piercing. "This was a **dream** , right?"

Ah, right. Dreams. "Well, the lookalike I'm talking about was very real for years. Then, just before I go to meet Christy, he tells me that his family's been busy and he needs to help him and he's taken a sort of break by raising me. Then he unleashes this super powered attack or something and blows my roof up, leaving me with an escape route, and then disappears. Since, he's appeared in my dreams. And he's also done some other things. I'm pretty sure he had a hand in making Christy super sleepy while we were traveling a while ago. I wound up carrying her for a bit."

"It didn't feel natural, that was for sure." Christy agreed with a firm nod of her head.

"And his friend is this dark monster thing?" Cobalt clarified.

"Oh, he was the scariest monster out there." I shivered "He beat my lookalike in chess with his back turned!"

Everybody sweatdropped, probably thinking 'that's why he's scared of the shadow guy?'

"But seriously, we can trust him," I assured Armalita, who uncrossed her arms. I looked at her for a bit before using aura fire to pull an extra shirt out of my pack and throw it at her. Not bothering to move, Armalita let the shirt hit her in the face and chest before slowly pulling it off and dropping it.

"I would prefer not to have my movement hindered," she explained. By the way, that wasn't an acceptable explanation.

Nevertheless, I recognized that she was not going to use the shirt, sighed, and dragged it back with my aura flames and tucked it back into my pack. Then, I turned to Christy. "Could you come with me, please?" I asked, starting to walk away.

We traveled to a place where the trees seemed a bit thicker. "This seems to be the single most covered area in the nearby area," I muttered, and turned to Christy, who stood silently with her hands held up in front of her chest uncomfortably. "Are you all right?"

Her cheeks turned red. "N-no… I just had a… Thought. It's not important."

Raina patted the kitsune's head a few times as she passed her sister by. As the girl looked down. I sighed and leaned against a tree, closing my eyes. "This is going to be uncomfortable for me." I informed Christy "Because to test whether something I tried works, I have to… Give an order. Something simple, not more than having you raise your hand or something. It's still going to be hard to do, but…"

"I get it." Christy nodded quickly.

"Okay…" I kept my eyes closed. "...You no longer have to obey my commands." I said aloud. Starting simple, like I was instructed. "This feels somehow silly, but… Raise your right hand."

Christy's right hand rose instantly. A burst of impatience rose within me, but I was trusting my lookalike. "Alright. It's a bit late to ask this, but what's a good way to just shut down orders?"

"Uh…" Christy scratched her head with her other hand, after seeming to try and move the first one. She couldn't lower that hand at all.

I rubbed my eyes. "Okay… Let's try… Put your hand down."

Christy's hand dropped, and I nodded, but she grunted. "It's stuck in a downwards position, Gabe," she told me.

"Not good. Uh… Let's try a formal 'take back', or something."

"Try 'Rescind all orders'," Armalita suggested.

"Thank you, Armalita. Rescind all orders."

Christy's hand jolted up, and she twisted her forearm a few times. "That works," she confirmed.

I breathed out heavily. "Christy, are you uncomfortable?"

"A little." she admitted, "But I don't see how it can be fixed in any way."

"I think buddy-boy's the uncomfortable one here," Raina commented with a sly smirk.

"Not now, Raina. Okay. Christy, you are free to do as you want. Now, Hold out your left arm."

Christy's left arm rose and extended sideways. Christy watched her arm as if it wasn't a part of her at the moment. "Rescind all orders," I said again, and we both watched her arm promptly drop to her side again.

This was not supposed to be as taxing on my emotional state as it was right now. I had been hoping to just deal with this. And Christy's eyes were really, really soft right now. With all the effort I put in to help her, that look just increased in intensity. Like she wanted something from me. "Okay… You will act as you intend to." I tried. "...Raise your right hand."

Her right hand rose. I closed my eyes. "...Rescind all orders."

As I heard her hand smack against her thigh, as she made no attempt to stop it from falling, I also heard her step closer to me. I paid close attention to what she was doing. She seemed to be restraining herself from speaking or something. Like she wanted to say something, but was stopping herself.

"Christy, is something wrong?" I asked.

She shook her head rapidly. "No, no, I just… I really appreciate that you're doing this, even if I have trouble believing it's going to work in the end… I'm realizing a lot of things right now, but I shouldn't interrupt."

"You can interrupt any time you feel like it," I assured her as kindly as I could. "So… Do not obey any more of my orders. Now, raise your right hand."

Her hand rose. I repeated the phrase 'rescind all orders', and watched it fall back down. I sighed aloud. "Let's keep working at it," I said, mostly for my own benefit. It was hard forcing her to do anything.

"I'm willing as long as you are," Christy promised.

I took another deep breath. "Okay, let's try this. Do what you want to do. Now-"

Christy suddenly lunged forward, grabbing me by the shoulders with her hands and pulling me towards her. I didn't have a chance in hell of reacting as she pressed her lips against mine and **kissed** me right then and there.

I struggled, but Christy's tails wrapped around me and held me in place. Her lips were warm. Her breath was now intoxicating. I was in my lucario form right at the moment, but I no longer remembered the last time I shifted forms. I couldn't think. I couldn't breathe. Was I supposed to be doing something?

She eventually released me, I'm not sure when. Could have been ten seconds, could have been hours. I just stared in shock, while Christy stepped back. Released from her grip, I nearly fell over. Her mouth was open and her teeth were clenched together in an awkward facial expression of embarrassment, her cheeks were a wonderful shade of red compared to the blue and yellow that made up the rest of her body, and her eyes were wide with shock and something unidentifiable.

"That… That was…" I stammered.

"You… You said 'do what… What you want to d-do'…" Christy stammered back.

"That-that-that… That…" I blinked a few times.

"Congrats, sis. You broke him." Raina nodded approvingly. "Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you the most awkward first kiss of all time."

"...Indeed." Armalita agreed after a moment.

"Woo! Go, Christy!" Sandra exclaimed from the other side of the clearing. Where she had gone and how she got here, I neither registered or would have been able to understand.

"...That… Uh… But…"

Christy's tails were still around me in a way, twisting. Sliding down and up my body slowly. It was likely entirely instinctual on her part.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I was snapped to some degree of sense again when I heard the little 'click' of the object on Gabriel's belt. Not by much, though; My mind wasn't going anywhere else anytime soon. I stared at Gabriel, hardly able to believe what had just happened. He was stuttering like a boy, staring into my eyes with his red eyes. Somehow, the only thing that popped into my mind was 'would it feel different if I did that when he was in his other form?'

"I don't…" Gabriel stopped "R-rescind all orders?"

He seemed to be gathering his bearings enough to try and stop his command. Because my body had totally flown out of my own control and did what he told me to do: What I wanted to do, even if that hadn't really clicked for me just yet. Something swam to the surface in my addled mind.

" _Oh my god I want to do that again."_

So I did it again. I pressed my lips against his and held him tightly with my hands and tails. Gabriel seemed to shut down most of his functions, but this time, he kissed me back. By the time I was done, Gabriel was gasping for breath. The poor boy stumbled backward and if not for Cobalt suddenly being at his side, Gabriel would have fallen onto his back. "I-I said… R-rescind all orders…" he muttered.

"...Yeah…" I murmured "You… Did."

"S-so…"

I tried to cover my face with my hands and tails, attempting to hide my expression. "That was…"

"...Intentional?"

"Y-yeah…"

There was a pause as I heard him moving around, trying to peek from between my tails. However, I felt his hands start to brush my tails away. It was like seeing somebody peeking out of the foliage, but he was peeking through my tails and meeting my eyes. "It's not like you to panic like that, Christy," he said. "I… Don't know what else to say."

"Idea." Raina interrupted, raising a single claw in the air. Against our better judgment, we all turned to her. "Say: Just don't kiss me every time I try to fix you."

Gabriel sweatdropped, and turned back to me. "...I think I know why my lookalike wanted me to start with simple things," he said bluntly.

Well, that brought the heat back to my cheeks. "I'm gonna give your lookalike a good clobbering for his matchmaking antics!" I exclaimed, my eye twitching.

"Me too." Gabriel chuckled awkwardly "But… It wasn't too bad."

"...No, I guess it wasn't." I concurred, turning a smile on him.

"Okay, break it up." Raina planted one hand on Gabriel's face and one on mine and pushing us apart. "As much as it annoys me, because I've already thought of dozens of awesome things that buddy-boy here could make Christy do, I'd rather see fixing than **this** garbage."

She didn't refrain from dragging her claws on us when she took her hands away. Gabriel and I had mirror-image claw marks on our muzzles. Gabriel winced, and then shifted. Oh, that's not fair! He could make the wounds on his face shrink when his muzzle vanished.

"Alright… I'm going to jump to something super complicated." Gabriel prepared me. "And be warned: It's going to seem random, nonsensical, completely out of order and is probably going to sound like random pointless babbling with some helpful words in there."

"I doubt my ears will wind up bleeding." I proclaimed, still smiling at him.

Gabriel nodded and opened his mouth to speak…

...And suddenly got bowled over by Sandra, who was giggling madly and trying to push him towards me despite him being on the ground and therefore hard to push.

I swiftly grabbed him with my tails; I really didn't need Gabriel to be drunk right now. Especially not now that he was getting into the motions of making mundane orders. That wouldn't be great. I pulled the guy away from the drunk feline, who whined as she landed on the ground.

"Gabriel, you okay?" I asked the guy as I dragged him close to me, gripping his arms with my hands as well. I regretted asking the question immediately. "...Oh."

"Urgh…" he clutched his head "I can't deal with this. Knock me out, quick!"

My body obeyed instantly, and my tail slammed into his head and knocked him to the floor. I quickly. "The epitome of judgment loss." Armalita deadpanned as I picked him up, my tails having finished their assault on the guy.

"So there's no way to keep your sister under control?" I asked, resigned to the fact that Gabriel had forced me to knock him out by accident, in panic as he felt his mind slipping away. Armalita shook her head grimly.

"Perhaps it would be best if I took her home." Armalita nodded.

I was incredibly conflicted. "If we could find a way to keep her in check, we could keep you with us…" I murmured "I don't want to leave you behind."

Armalita nodded in agreement. "I feel the same." she proclaimed "I do not wish to leave you so soon. Perhaps we can find a place to wait for him to wake before we decide."

"Sure thing." I nodded. "Hey, this is a bit late, but didn't Malvolio have something that canceled magic?"

"We would have to sneak back into the building."

"...Never mind then."

I hoisted my boyfriend (it was still freaking weird calling him that, but I guess we made it sort-of-official now) up with my tails and we continued on our way with Sandra following along behind Armalita and making random comments or watching birds and bugs flutter past. And occasionally trying to catch them.

"So is your face going to stay red forever or not?" Raina asked me, walking with her hands behind her head. "What is this, a cheesy romance novel now?"

I couldn't help it. I had to say what came to mind immediately. "You seem familiar with these 'cheesy romance novels'," I noted, causing my sister to turn towards me more.

"So?"

Ah, a doorway of sorts. I decided to open it. "Just didn't think you were the type anymore." I shrugged. "And I didn't see any in your room. So what kind of novels do you read?"

"Oh… Interested?" Raina asked, her tone sultry and her smirk suggestive. I flinched, and shivered.

"Not that way." I denied quickly, frustrated at the ease of which my sister had caught me off guard "I just… Wanted to know what else you liked."

"Oh, I don't **like** those." Raina shrugged "but they have a hell of a lot of examples of things that work in real life that make my job much more fun. Especially those really detailed picture book things with several female characters. Once I started reading those, making men bleed didn't even require physical attacks."

I closed my eyes. "So they tortured you and brainwashed you to enjoy their pain, and then… Stories made you change your behavior until you acted amorous all the time. Raina-"

Raina covered my mouth with her hand. "Blah, blah, blah." She muttered "So many big words. I bet you feel real proud of yourself."

"I want to help you!" I exclaimed

"And I want you to shut up." Raina wiggled her claws in my direction. "Or… I'm gonna hurt'cha."

"...Please try to keep those tendencies suppressed." I requested.

"And why would I do that?" Raina inspected her claws. "I like using these things."

"We're trying to stop a war."

"Boo." my sister pouted "No war means no prisoners. Means I don't have an excuse to make people scream."

"Then you'll have to do other things," I suggested quietly.

Raina took a moment to give me hope by appearing thoughtful. "I guess I could still do emotional torture if there's peace. All I have to do is lean over the table and the guys are done for. Do I still get to torture them if they try anything?"

"...No." I shook my head "On all counts, Christy. I meant, like… Painting. You could still paint, you could still read, you could talk about funny things that happened to us, or make fun of past awkward moments. You could banter, joke around… You could be a part of the family. All of this destruction-..."

"Funny things, huh?" Raina appeared thoughtful. There was this one time. I was laughing about it for a few hours, really. Marked the date as something really significant and all that. It was about a year ago, I think. I dunno."

"What happened?" I wanted to hear more, thinking that this must be something normal, something that didn't involve-

"So I was doing my job, like normal. Suddenly, I look at my schedule and see that the next person to interrogate's a girl. And you know, girls aren't as fun to mess with as guys. They don't get nosebleeds, and putting up a show just seems like a chore around a bunch of them, not that it stops me."

...No. She was laughing about one of her victims.

"So I go over to the cell. It's a new girl. White tiger taikan, pink hair, petite with a generous bust, bawling her eyes out about something. I open her cell door with my usual greeting, and after her tears got into the new cuts, which seemed to be pretty painful. Course, I did that on purpose. I mastered where to cut crying people my third year on the job. Anyways, she gets this meek look and forces herself to stop crying, and try to be the 'brave little girl'. That in itself was something to laugh at already."

"Raina…" I murmured, trying to derail the conversation. I didn't know how to get through to her.

"So I take her into the room from before. You saw it, the one where I messed up your boyfriend." Raina continued, gesturing towards me. "And she's looking about and probably wondering why it's so clean. I get it a lot from the first timers: 'This has to be the cleanest, nicest interrogation rooms of all time', they say to me. At least, the cockier ones do before I break them. She doesn't ask that, but it's written all over her face, so I press."

Raina's eyes gleamed with growing mirth. "She kinda shivers, and stares at me for a moment without answering, so I give her a decent scar right to the right of her chin, and she starts talking with this awesome 'don't hurt me anymore' tone that had me struggling to keep my laughter in. Then she, obedient little girl she is, asks why it's clean. Then I do **this**."

Suddenly, Raina grabbed me and spun with me rapidly, her hands on my arms and holding my arms behind my back. At the end of the swing, she roughly put my back to the tree, and my sister put her hand on my chest, holding me there. "I lean real close." Raina did just that "And I tell her: 'I clean it every time I've finished with somebody. Wanna guess what I'm cleaning?' And let me tell you, that girl was speechless for a minute, before the most unexpected thing happens. This girl, jarred from the impact, starts looking at my chest, and her cheeks turn all red. Imagine my surprise. I thought she was a guy in disguise or something!"

"So I leaned even closer." Raina did as she was explaining to me again, getting **very** close to me. "She gets even worse. She's stuttering. She doesn't get it. Her fear's melting away a bit, and I learned that day that girls **can** get nosebleeds. But I waited until that fear was replaced by all the confusion and even arousal in the world, and that's when…"

She shifted her hand so that her claws poked my chest while her other hand moved to hold my shoulder to the tree. "That's when I tear it all down. She fell apart so fast that if it was physical, I would have gotten whiplash. By the time I toss her into one of my healing machines, she's got these wonderful bloody scars from her chest down to her stomach and from her front to her back, and her nose is **still** bleeding!"

Raina released me, turning away. She was chuckling happily. "That's gotta be one of my favorite stories from the workplace. It was so easy to get back into the swing of messing with girls just as much as guys after that. I even had another girl blush, but that one? All time favorite female subject. The rest of the good stories are guys, obviously, because they can't handle a minute in a room with me without staring under my eyes."

I was breathing heavily, my chest heaving and my hand where her claws had poked me. They came back with a little blood on them. I couldn't speak. I thought Raina had been about to play out the memory on me in that one instant, and feared both bleeding heavily, waking Gabriel with my scream, and losing the jumpsuit I wore that I had become so attached to.

Armalita appeared at my side, gently and reassuringly holding my arm. "Being destroyed and then messily thrown together is a fate I would wish on no one." she murmured, looking in Raina's direction "Had you had this conversation within a year of it, she might have responded better, but for years and years she has known nothing but this. I am sorry, Christy."

I closed my eyes, bringing Gabriel close to me despite his being unconscious. Wrapped up in my tails supportingly, he still provided some degree of comfort. "...I need her…" I murmured "I need my sister back…"

"Tough break, sis." Raina shrugged as she started walking again. "There's the occasional cave in this forest, just popping up on occasion. They go deep, and are often dotted with pocket caverns. We'll wait for this bloke to wake back up; His banter is actually kinda entertaining even when he's being slashed open."

I got a mental image of my sister writing Gabriel's name on a list of 'informants' to remember.

"Understood." Armalita let go of my arm, seeing that Gabriel's presence as an alive person was giving me plenty of comfort after his near death at Malvolio's hands, and later at my own hands. My friend turned to Cobalt, who was trying to be invisible nearby the other side of the group.

Then she touched his arm, clearly intending to ask if he needed anything, he jumped and bristled and totally panicked just being in her presence. She kept a firm grip on his arm, however. "Cobalt, what exactly frightens you so?" Armalita asked.

"The 'no-nonsense' attitude directed at a guy who's been paying special attention to you?" I offered.

"Hey, Armalita. Cut it out. I'm the one that's supposed to terrify him." Raina scolded the girl, hands on her hips.

"What's up?" Sandra appeared nearby, hands clutched together. She was watching her enclosed hands quite a bit, before she thrust her hands at Armalita and opened them, releasing a butterfly she had caught.

"...Thank you, Sandra." Armalita nodded as the bug fluttered past her head. She stepped away from a sighing Cobalt and patted her sister on the head. Sandra responded by nuzzling up against her sister's hand with a purr before pausing to take another drink out of the flask at her belt.

"...Why is there still alcohol in that thing?" I asked.

Sandra hopped up and turned at the same time. "Oh! Mama Bear was saying she was running out for some reason. Kinda got all frustrated and she punched a dude. It was awesome! And then, she said she'd ordered something just for me! It doesn't run out!"

She tilted it back above her mouth and missed her mouth. The rest of us watched the almost pure alcohol spill all over her for a solid three seconds. Armalita looked over at me. "Several weeks ago, I asked for a flask for my sister that would be magically connected to a reservoir. I think 'Mama Bear' used the running out tactic to get Sandra moving somewhere."

"Ah. I guess they fill the reservoir then?"

"Daily."

"How the heck does she manage to consume all that?" Cobalt asked, "For that matter, how are they keeping up with the supply?"

"...I have seen Sandra do many impossible things over the years." Armalita murmured "Including tricks like appearing before us previously. She seems to simply… break the rules."

So If I had this all right, this was our group: My amorous sadist of a sister, a dangerous reality-breaking drunk, a fearful defensive wall with no combat training and harboring the hots for Armalita, an honor-bound warrior with no apparent fears and a habit of pointing her trident at people, a wonderful prokopian who just officially became my boyfriend, and a six-tailed taikan who doesn't know whether to be frightened or subdued by all of the changes around me, feeling confusion and panic.

...What a lovely traveling group, right?

* * *

 **I am not entirely certain how long you expected Christy's predicament to last. Personally, I think it would feel forced if I wrote Gabriel being angry with Christy for several chapters. The two have been with each other for a long, long time. I figured it was about time that the 'romance' genre actually started to take place in this story, and so initiated what I had in fact been planning for a long time: The single most awkward first kiss of all time.**

 **One thing I hope I conveyed properly was just how dangerous both Sandra and Raina are. And I hoped that Raina's image has gone from frightening and worrying to outright scary to think about.**

 **I hope everyone has enjoyed this chapter of The Kitsune and the Jackal. I did feel very... Off about this chapter. The next one should come in more easily than this one did, after the other stories are updated of course. So please tell me what you thought about the story and how it made you feel when you review the chapter, as it will help me understand whether I was able to handle writing a chapter after what I did in the last one.**

 **Thank you all for reading. Seriously, thank you. Have a nice day, everyone.**


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Hello, everyone. Welcome, all of you, to KatJ. Again. I hope you're ready to enjoy the chapter.**

 **Instead of boring you with monologue stuffs, let's jump into reviews.  
**

 **Amber: Um... Where should we start?**

 **Jango: From the top! no, wait, the bottom. let's start with the bottom, because the site lists the reviews newest at the top and stuff. Let's start with our main man Westernfail. Commenting on the speed of which Christy and Gabe got back together, Hyper's first attempt at romance writing, and brainwashing.**

 **Me: To answer that, as Keyterayne (dunno if I'm spelling that right can't be bothered to check) implied, Raina was subjected to the educational method of brainwashing involving both physical and magical torture. You have to remember that taikan magic isn't a cure-all in this story. Far from it, it takes a lot of energy to do something other than the innate magic power imbued in a taikan's tail. Also, you have to remember when I write Raina that I have zero experience with someone, anyone, who actually has experienced the educational method, obviously. So if you decide I'm wrong in how I portray her, tough. that last part is to everybody.**

 **Amber: ArataTheLegend is complementing Gabriel on getting his first kiss. It is a romance story, so everyone knew this scene would happen eventually.**

 **Me: Hence why I tried to make that first kiss as much of a surprise and as much of an odd method as possible.**

 **Jango: Wait no longer, NoSkills, KatJ is back in business.**

 **Me: Ah, hello Zlaxe. Yeah, that first kiss was in the plans from the very first time I started writing the story. And, uh... Nothing is Jango proof. Nothing. I'll keep him in sight if possible. I hope I have appropriately added onto your other observations during this chapter. whether you turn out right or not... Is to be seen over time as more chapters are made.**

 **Jango: Aaaand AveragePichu. well, I'm happy to entertain you. And that error was fixed, if hyper got off his lazy arse and fixed it.**

 **Me: I remember fixing it. Pretty sure... I'm going to double check. And triple check.**

 **Amber: Okay... well, if you guys are going to do stuff, I guess I'll send them off into the chapter. Uh, everyone, enjoy the chapter, and... I should really reword that... (starts muttering)**

* * *

Chapter Eleven: Solutions

"Ugh…" Gabriel rubbed his head. "My head…"

I winced. "Sorry…" I whispered.

The two of us knelt in the grass a great distance from the others. They had found a cavern to rest in and remain hidden, while I took Gabriel to a secluded place so that we could deal with the band on his arm properly.

But first, we had to get him back in action. He looked a little drunk still; We needed a way to keep Sandra in check. But first, we had to fix this latest emotional terror: My own will. "C'mon, Gabriel." I coaxed, rubbing his shoulders in an attempt to alleviate any stress that might be building up in his system. If I was super lucky, he wouldn't remember ordering me to do anything. I doubt he'd even think about the damage it caused him; He would be too busy beating himself up over failing to keep from giving orders, even in a drunk state.

"Yeah…" Gabriel nodded "I'm just a bit tired now. I think Sandra's effect is almost completely gone now."

I smiled warmly at him. "We can be glad that you seem to recover quickly from it." I offered.

He was looking me in the eyes, blinking slowly a few times. I mean, ever since I kissed the guy, it was harder to look away from those crimson irises. Even if I had absolutely zero control over my body at the time…

Well, maybe I did, in a way. Not physically, but he told me to do what I wanted to do… It was like infallible, unintentional encouragement. That being said, it was also the most embarrassing thing I've ever had happen to me, unplanned as it was.

But it stopped Gabriel from being angry with me… Mostly. I knew him well enough. His eyes still showed a form of hesitation and fear… But that would fade when we were done with this. And the trouble with my Will would go away forever.

"Yeah…" Gabriel agreed. "Christy… I'm sorry I-"

I put one of my tails up to the front of his muzzle in a 'pipe down' gesture. "Don't," I ordered sternly. "Both incidents were accidents."

Gabriel's expression darkened.

"Don't say it." I crossed my arms. "Look… We've been together for a long time now. We've gotten to know each other, lived with each other… Became friends, and then best friends. And we're still **alive** , Gabriel."

He blinked, likely wondering where I was going with this. "Where are you going with this?" he asked. Yep, there it was.

"I'm saying… It was probably for the better that we admitted our feelings for each other now." I explained. "But… I don't know what to do about it. So instead, we need to focus, because I know you want to keep that band from affecting me anymore."

Gabriel's expression turned determined, and he nodded. "...Okay." he agreed. "But this might sound like the craziest thing you've ever heard, and we'll have to work together with it." He closed his eyes. "My idea is that I can say some random words that don't mean anything, making it clear that I have to say it for the band to work, but then you have to say something. And we'll go back and forth with it. So… How ridiculous do you want to sound?"

I found myself smiling. "Make me sound as ridiculous as possible." I nodded.

He raised a brow. "Like wizards in a children's story?"

"Sure." my smile had turned into a grin.

"Okay, so how stupid should I sound?" Gabriel asked, helping me keep up the lighter mood.

"I dunno…" I mimicked thinking about it, even going so far as to put my fist on my chin, even though I had already decided. "An orc?"

Gabriel chuckled. "Sure. Just for you." he agreed, amused. The way he said that had me glad that my fur was thick enough to cover a light blush at least. "Anyways, I have to say all of it in the way of an order… and how I think I should do it is this: I am going to basically make the equivalent of a code word, except there's no way we'd say it by accident."

I thought. "So… Basically, like if someone who **would** want to use it were to say something like 'only obey my command if I state your name first', or something like that?"

"Yes. I don't think it would really work for something so simple, but I do think that if we get complicated enough, the magic'll just break down in its wake." Gabriel "And if that doesn't work properly, somehow, we'll try again, okay?"

"Okay." I nodded. "I so wish I could record you making stupid orc noises."

"Dr-" Gabriel started, but cut himself off. " **Please** dream on."

"I don't think that would have worked." I rubbed my head behind one of my ears. "You can't affect my mind, remember?"

Gabriel nodded. "Just… Paranoid," he muttered.

The next ten minutes passed with Gabriel and I discussing how best to make total fools out of ourselves and beat an extremely powerful form of magic in the process. By the time we were ready, we were having trouble not laughing at ourselves. A lot.

But I sobered in an instant when something occurred to me. "I wonder if the band's going to break or dissolve when the magic's broken…" I murmured.

Gabriel blinked. "Is it important?" he asked.

I frowned. "A little bit… The band itself is pretty much the last thing that I know of that exists of my mother. It's her magic in it, after all…"

Gabriel shook his head. "Think about it." he said frankly "The magic isn't being destroyed. It's being beaten down, but not destroyed. **Technically** , the magic's plenty active, but we have to say those things for it to actually do anything, which I don't think we'll **ever** do."

Okay, so the band was sticking around. "I hope you like your permanent jewelry then…" I deadpanned.

Gabriel sweatdropped in response, but bravely forged on. "And this band definitely **isn't** the only part of your mother left." he continued.

"Oh, don't get sappy with me." I mock-groaned.

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "I was talking about your sister and anything your family owned that might still be in that compound, that you can claim when we survive this… Mission." he elaborated.

I blushed hard enough for my fur to be of no help this time. This was embarrassment. "Oh…" I muttered.

"No, but why don't we go with your idea," Gabriel smirked, raising his hands in an odd gesture.

"No, no need." I did not need the sappiness right now, even if it was a joke.

"Oh, but I insist," Gabriel replied. "This band isn't the only part of your mother left because you'll always have a piece of her... " he poked my chest, directly above my breasts. "In **here**."

"Ugh…" I slumped. "Okay, you win. Can we go to the mutually embarrassing part?"

Gabriel smiled. "Sure." he nodded. "It'll feel a lot better after we've got this off our chests…"

He took a deep breath to prepare himself, knowing he was going to have to give an order to make this work. I was ready, ready to move past this and get on with life. Although… We did have to fight a little more first…

"Christy, under no circumstances will you obey any command given unless the following sequence of words is given: Ackhar, Gui-narl, Gah- **Ha** hahahaha…" Gabriel broke down laughing quickly. "It just sounds… Too **dumb**!"

I smiled at him. "I put up with your sappiness, you get to embarrass yourself now," I told him, crossing my arms.

He sighed, but got that determined look in his eye that meant he really was going to do it. "Christy, under no circumstances will you obey any command given unless the following sequence of words is given: 'Ackhar, Gui-narl, Gah-ka, hoo-ran, Kai-galoo'... Immediately after which you would have to reply: 'confreigious order, Ice-inerate, portus'... And I must then say 'Gorguile, baroon, mince'... And you must then say: 'Bippity-boo, Augmetal, and shadowdance'... Only after these have been completed will any commands that follow be binding."

I burst out laughing as Gabriel blushed upon finishing that. "Okay…" I held a hand up. "First, that's amazing. Second, I think we just offended every single wizard and orc in **existence**. Third, I'm pretty sure few of those are actual words on their own."

"Well… That was the point." Gabriel rubbed the back of his head, shifting the odd extensions on the back of his head as he did so. "Because of time limits, there's no way that all the bases were covered, and this way, even if all the general stuff had been covered even with your mom intentionally keeping her mind blank, she wouldn't have thought of a bunch of nonexistent words."

I nodded. "You and mom make a great team." I complimented him. He smiled back, knowing that being put on the same level as my mother by me personally was huge praise indeed. "Now… Should we try it?"

Gabriel nodded. "Yeah…" he said. "I'm suddenly fearing that it's not gonna work…"

"And what's the worst that could happen?" I asked, raising a brow. "We'll just try again."

"It would still hurt…" he murmured. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Gabe is so freaking awesome. I just know that watching from the Neverending Dream, my mother would be praising him too, if only for how he puts such care into everything he does and says and puts everyone before himself. "But… Yeah. You're right. Christy… Raise your right hand."

If it wouldn't have hurt the guy emotionally, I would have been sorely tempted to raise my hand to tease him. But I didn't. And my hand didn't go up on its own. My smile widened as far as it could possibly go, and Gabriel's smile burst back in full once more.

We leapt into each other's arms, and by that time, I realized that Gabriel was on the verge of **tears** again. He's become such a crybaby in the last few days that I figured it was getting habitual for him. "Christy… It **worked**!" he whisper-yelled. "It actually **worked**! You're **free**!"

I closed my eyes and pulled him tighter into our embrace. "Yeah…" I whispered back. "You did it, Gabriel. Beat the 'infallible magic'.

Gabriel paused, letting the warmth that we shared help heat him up as the tears stopped, hopefully never to arise again. He pulled away eventually, holding me by the shoulders. "I didn't do it alone." he said "You… And your mother helped me do it."

Then he pulled me into a kiss. An actual, proper kiss at the right time, with no distractions. I was still left wondering what it would be like kissing him in his other form.

* * *

Armalita and the others had certainly found one of the caverns in the landscape. It looked more like a sideways pit in a small crevice at first, surrounded by black stone and dirt. "Ominous," I commented.

"Yep. But it's also pitch black later down, I'm sure." Gabriel pointed out. "And that means nobody's going to go out of their way to find their way through." He looked at me, smiling. "Christy, mind giving us a light as we go in?"

I smiled. "I'll give you six."

We began our journey forward as my six tails lit at the tips with large fireballs that I maintained. Then, we forged forward into the darkness. I adjusted the placement of my tails, stretching the lighted tips across the cavern. This allowed Gabriel to be right where we both wanted him; Next to me.

Am I underselling or overselling what it means that we're both alive and well and have **kissed** each other?

When we were safely in the darker parts of the cave, Gabriel switched forms in the blink of an eye just to get used to using both forms regularly once more. He stretched, and I didn't even have to use my mind magic to know his arm would wind up around my shoulders.

"We've been holding ourselves back for a long time," I commented, leaning into him.

He nodded. "Yeah. I can't believe we even properly managed it… I guess just forcing ourselves not to recognize it helped."

"Though your lookalike is still a jackass." I mock-frowned. "Did you give him a wallop for making me fall asleep so that you wound up carrying me?"

Gabriel laughed. "I don't remember." he shrugged " **But** , I would want to wait until the day we both get to talk to him at once. **Then** , we'll do it."

"I like this plan," I told him.

"That's because it's an **awesome** plan," Gabriel grinned cheekily. I laughed and ruffled his hair with my hand as I forged on. He responded by scratching me behind my right ear, which was just a cheap trick because I can't help but push against the offending hand with a content sound.

"Cheater…" I mumbled.

He chuckled at me and relieved me of the debilitating attention, at which I was able to proclaim my revenge and grab him from behind, giving him a vicious noogie that had him yelping. "Ow! Ow!" he exclaimed, his eyes scrunched up "I give you an ear scratch and you give me **this**!? Ow!"

"Maybe your other, more iron skull can help you," I whispered in his ear, planting the idea in his head as I continued relentlessly driving my knuckles against the top of his head. Predictably, the goofball took my advice and shifted. Big mistake. Big, big mistake.

Because my real retaliation began when I got his ear in my grasp and scratched him directly behind it. He gave off a yelp as I did so. "Gah! You tricked me!" he whined.

"Yes I did, dog boy. Yes I did." I whispered back as I released him and he shifted back right away. "How is it that you can be a gullible genius? Isn't that an oxymoron?"

"Oh, put your brow back down…" Gabriel grumbled, crossing his arms in an attempt to look indignant. And looking indignant when your ear is still yearning for attention just doesn't work out completely. Now that we both looked ridiculous, we continued walking and talking, just like we used to.

So when we got to a fork in the tunnel of brown and black stone, we found Armalita standing in the left tunnel. "Beware… This tunnel looks identical on either path for nearly ten minute's worth of walking." Armalita warned. "Did you succeed?"

Gabriel stepped forward, a grin still silly from our playfight earlier on his face. "Definitely. Observe." he turned to me. "Christy? Jump."

My muscles didn't move in the slightest, eliciting a smile from Armalita. "Well done to you, Gabriel, and I suppose credit where it's due to your mother, Christy. It gives me great joy to see you free from what was supposed to be a permanent burden and curse," she said, nodding.

"Hold it…" I raised a finger. "Did you leave **Cobalt** with a drunk and my **sister**?"

Armalita paused. "I did not. Cobalt followed me… Despite trying to pretend he didn't." her tail swished, and a single needle shot into the darkness, eliciting a yelp and the sound of metal on metal. "His lack of vulnerability led me to believe that action was all right."

"Just don't aim for the eyes…" Gabriel muttered as he passed the girl. "And put on some clothes."

Armalita sniffed while I giggled. "It is hardly your place to complain, jackal." she retorted, turning as my lights began to vanquish the darkness behind her. "Besides, I think my clothing is just fine. It covers the essentials by a margin of a foot wide and does not impede my movement. I do not see you complaining about my sister's attire, which I believe is one step away from what Prosecutor's original outfit choice used to be."

"Probably because arguing with a drunk doesn't get you anywhere." Gabriel deadpanned.

Armalita was forced to concede this with a nod after a moment, watching as Cobalt sheepishly joined them. My smile broadened slightly as he began apologizing for his shenanigans. "Uh… Sorry, Armalita."

"Nonsense." Armalita strode on. "I expected you to follow me. In fact, the two other girls remaining together in that room are likely a safe combination. Raina will steer clear of Sandra, and Sandra will not be able to catch the ever-attentive Raina with her tail."

"We have really weird family trees…" I muttered loud enough for her to hear. She gave a grave nod as we forged onwards.

Then, we made it to the room off to the side. It looked like the place had been forged from some sort of slow whirlpool that was also apparently powerful enough to carve through stone, with loose dirt on the ground. It made a good spot to rest, though the journey to it was longer. We wouldn't be interrupted here.

"Awesome. A safe place to sleep." Gabriel yawned and plopped himself down on the dirt in a cross-legged position before falling onto his back with his legs crossed, still looking really, really ridiculous. Which meant he was wondering if I was going to either comment or lie down next to him in the dirt.

I chose option two, because I figured we were acting clingy enough recently. My tails extinguished as I registered the torches that had been constructed and put up in the soft dirt. I looked to Gabriel, who used his hands under his head and his extraordinarily long cobalt trench coat as a blanket. I was getting dirt in my beloved jumpsuit… But I could just manipulate some water to wash it and then dry it by pulling the water out of it and keeping it near my own fire. I would be fine.

Armalita, to her credit (Gabriel was likely thinking the same, but grudgingly), was lying on the dirt just fine and nothing was getting into her tight, minimal clothing. If she was on her stomach, that might be a different story, but she was not.

Sandra seemed to love playing in the dirt, and my own sister… Had tossed her cloak aside and was closing her eyes. There was something deceptively peaceful about that image… Her sadism and destructive tendencies were prevalent only in her words and actions, so when she was sleeping or trying to sleep… She reminded me of my sister before this all happened to her, before her life was turned into a criminal's tool for harm and fear.

I waited until her breathing steadied before moving two of my tails and pulling her cloak over her like a blanket, to tuck her in.

But it had been silently, unanimously agreed that we would all go to sleep now, and try to wake bright and early naturally for the day. Strangely, the last one not trying to sleep was Cobalt, who sat on his own, cross-legged.

I frowned and sat up, catching his eye. My eyes voiced my question for me, though not in a literal sense. Cobalt just sighed softly and got into what appeared to be a meditating position, closing his eyes and hanging his head somewhat. Was that how the guy slept? Weird… Unless he was waiting for us to go to sleep so that he did not 'bother' us with his sleeping difficulties.

But I didn't know for sure, so I resolved to see how tired he was in the morning. I then went back to my sleeping position. As a secondary thought, I elongated my tails and wove them into a mattress for myself before allowing my eyes to close properly.

* * *

"Oh, geez…" I muttered, rubbing my eyes. "Was I really so tired?"

Gabriel didn't dare let that go without a quip. "Weren't you trying to kill me the other day? Followed by, like, a marathon?" he asked, rubbing his eyes as well.

"I think it was the mattress you made for yourself, honestly." Armalita sat against the wall, wide awake. "If you go to bed comfortable, you wake up with bleary eyes."

Gabriel frowned and looked up at the wolf girl. "And what do you sleep on, a bed of nails?" he asked incredulously.

"...No. I typically sleep on a soft mattress as well." Armalita said, shutting Gabriel's joke down. "Why else would I know what waking up on one is like?"

Gabriel finally registered what she was talking about. "Hang on a sec" he interrupted, pouting. "Christy didn't let me sleep on her tails?"

I giggled at his once again clearly fabricated emotions that he was pouring into that expression. Once again, he was clearly fine with it all. "Okay, okay, Gabriel. We can share a fluffy mattress of woven tails together tomorrow night." I promised, still giggling before I pushed him a little with one of those tails.

We all woke up individually, but at similar times… Except for Cobalt. We all waited for twenty minutes before our talking began to stir him, and when it did, he did **not** look rested. Bags under his eyes, he silently rubbed sleep away. What was going on with him?

Armalita was probably thinking the same thing. "Cobalt," she called.

He jumped. "Ah! Uh… Armalita? What did you need?" he asked as if just registering that we were all there.

"You do not look well." Straight to the point, huh Armalita?

"W-what makes you say that?" he asked, not fluent in his words or actions.

Armalita stepped up to him, and he almost took a step back, but didn't. Armalita had three inches on him, and she used that height to freeze him in place with her intimidating appearance. "...You haven't been sleeping." she accused.

"Well…" Cobalt muttered.

"Why did you say nothing when we were preparing to sleep?" Armalita pressed sternly.

"Uh…"

"Answer my question." Armalita crossed her arms.

"I-I didn't want to get in the way," he confessed quickly and tried to turn away. Armalita's strong grip clamped down on his metal shoulder, the cobaltum taikan giving a small yelp of surprise.

Then she turned him around again, her stern gaze fading somewhat. "This is a journey." she began "And a journey starts with everyone, and it ends with everyone. So… Cobalt. It is important to me that you don't think in such a way. In a true journey, a weak being is just as important as a strong one."

Cobalt didn't seem to comprehend properly what he had just heard, and so stared at her.

"Tell me… What keeps you up at night?" Armalita asked, taking a more gentle tone to help encourage the reserved teenager.

Cobalt looked away somewhat, as if hesitant. "...I… Well, we kept talking about killing this Boreas guy… I'm afraid of nightmares…"

Armalita's gaze softened even further. She put her hand on Cobalt's shoulder again, but this time, it was much more gentle. "Then rest assured… You do not need to be involved in the mission itself." she assured him "All that I ask… Is that you at least journey with us."

Cobalt… His eyes were big and puppy-like, like a little kid being given a valuable lesson. "We may be on our way to… Troubling events." Armalita murmured. "However, we must first get there. And we can all enjoy our journey… Until the day the ending comes to us. There is a time for fear, anticipation, and nightmares. Now is not one of those times."

"...Armalita…" Cobalt whispered. "But…"

"No buts." Armalita disagreed.

Cobalt blinked. "O-okay, Armalita… Thank you."

Armalita patted his shoulder and looked out at the rest of us. "We must move quickly this morning, so prepare yourselves for a long hike," she ordered.

"Got it." Gabriel and I replied in perfect sync.

"Okay, Armalita." Cobalt murmured.

We all looked at Raina, who gave her signature smirk while she leaned against the wall. "Shouldn't you find Sandra first?" she asked while Gabriel used his aura flames to throw my sister's still discarded cloak at her, now in his beast form.

Then what she said clicked.

Armalita's gaze whipped around. "Curses!" she exclaimed, "She must have slipped away when I distracted myself!"

Cobalt flinched, and Armalita's ears twitched at the minute noise. She turned back around and gripped his shoulders with her palms. "Cobalt, do not blame yourself, please." she asked of him "I could easily have maintained my attention while I spoke to you."

He stopped mid-apology and stared as Armalita whirled around and darted out of the room. "Sandra!" she called, "Sandra, come here!"

She got no reply. The rest of us moved to follow Armalita out of the room quickly, really not into the idea of having one of our most volatile members just vanish on us. Armalita sniffed the air, searching for recent scents, and apparently detected **something** , because she began bolting deeper into the cavern.

Upon following her, we carefully picked our way through the long tunnel, the smooth bottom of it interspersed with piles of sharp fallen stones from the ceiling, which we had to get over quickly. I was personally glad that Sandra had gone **down** , not up, because if she went up, she could have gone in **any** direction.

But with the single tunnel of a cavern that was common around this part of the country, she could only go **down** , unless she hit a fork in the road like the one before.

We continued traveling downwards, Gabriel's blue flames and my orange and yellow flames lit up the surroundings until Armalita suddenly veered left into a small opening in the rock on the wall. "...In here." she proclaimed before squeezing into the cracks.

How Sandra had gotten through a crack in the wall that was pitch black and continued to be so for a minute of walking afterward was beyond me. Especially with all the obstacles appearing in the light of my flame in the increasingly widening side tunnel. "Remain on your guard," Armalita ordered. "This tunnel is very strange to me. Either it is unnatural, dug out, or the circumstances for its creation were convoluted indeed."

"I'm not sure we have anything like this in our country in the first place," Gabriel muttered. "What makes these tunnels like this?"

"I am not entirely knowledgeable…" Armalita admitted "But I do believe that these tunnels were some sort of magma outlet occurring during the eruption of a volcano. Or rather, forged by that leaking magma."

"Which mountain?" I asked, confused. "There's one close by, but this tube's pointed the totally wrong direction, and the mountain near Crescent City hasn't come close to erupting."

"Demon mountain, perhaps?" Armalita offered.

"Which, the one on the east border between Taika, Prokopios, and the land outside?" Gabriel clarified. At Armalita's nod, Gabriel huffed. "But that's days and days of walking away. Yeah, it erupted at one point, and with scary green lava too. But… All the way out here?"

"I believe so." Armalita nodded simply. "And perhaps it is the nature of this lava that gave the tunnel such a unique design, with pockets and tunnels to the side. I imagine if we were to actually follow this tunnel for a while, we would reach a dead end, but if we were to go further, breaking through the wall, we could find more of a tunnel. And possibly even find ourselves underneath the demon infested mountain."

"Fun times…" Raina voiced from the back.

"Should we be trusting you when our backs are turned to you?" Gabriel asked rhetorically.

"Nope." Came my sister's reply.

"Well, I'm between the both of you, so quit bickering before I use my tails with reckless abandon." I threatened.

"I'm not scared of you unless you have your frying pan," Gabriel told me frankly.

"I can **get** that." I pointed out.

"We left our stuff in the other room, Christy." Gabriel retorted playfully "Can your tails get that long?"

"Uh…" That was a good question actually. What limits were on the length of my tails? "Well… one tail's worth of elongation magic is worth maybe four or five meters, but all of my tails add on to each other, and the power grows exponentially, so… I don't know the limits for my tails, but trust me, I can make them really, really long."

"Nice. You can make mattresses for all of us." Gabriel grinned. I flicked a loop of one of my tails at him because the tip was still lit and we forged on.

A minute later, we came across a bend in the tunnel… And there was light coming out of it. "Sandra?" Armalita asked.

"Hey! Big sis!" Sandra's voice thankfully came floating back. "C'mere! Look! I found a cute puppy!"

We all looked at each other. "Metal dog?" Gabriel suggested.

"Perhaps." Armalita said, "But we can't support a pet right now."

"Good luck convincing Sandra of that." Raina pointed out.

Cobalt leaned against the wall away from us, staring at it to avoid our gazes. "..."

"No, Cobalt, you are not considered a pet." Armalita quickly reassured the boy before turning towards the tunnel again. "Sandra, please come here." she requested.

"You've **got** to see this guy!"

Armalita muttered under her breath, my ears catching her annoyance as she brought her head back up. "Alright, Sandra, we're coming." she forged ahead into the tunnel, rounding the corner while the rest of us hesitated.

Then…

"That… Is **not** a dog." Armalita's voice came back to us.

"Okay, dammit. Now I'm too curious." I started walking while Gabriel followed, and Raina absently played with our golden object as if she didn't care about the current situation in any way.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I strode into the room and stopped cold. Christy stopped cold next to me, and even Raina stopped behind us. Cobalt's reaction was more prevalent; he promptly panicked and cowered at the sight of the **beast** that lay before us.

The creature was glowing, first off. A soft white light emanated from its chest, but that was the only thing soft about it. First, it's body was made of solid crystal. Second, it was freaking **huge**!

It's body was like a rugged polygon, randomly shaped planes of crystal forming its body. However, the body itself was extremely animal-like. It was a quadruped, partially curled up in the back of a room that had a noticeable tunnel its size leading out to the other side of where we entered. Where ts paws would be were more like tree trunks without the roots, but they were bent at the joints like legs and near the base of these 'paws', some of them seemed to be bent slightly as well, as if it did in fact have ankles hidden in those solid trunks of crystal.

It's ears and tail were similar. They started about five inches in diameter, widened gradually until halfway up, where it seemed to be fifteen inches in diameter, before narrowing at the same gradual rate to points.

And along it's large back, were mountainous-looking spikes that looked disfigured. Some looked like rugged and inconsistent cones with the top cut off. In fact, most of them looked like that, but there were a few proper spikes. It was like some sort of dog-dinosaur mix, made entirely of crystal and with a glowing white light in the center of its chest, maybe two to three feet deep.

Oh, and the white eye-looking images on the front of its canine-like face, and the fact that it had a mouth. It had a nose structure as well, but no nostrils.

And on top of it, grinning like an idiot, was Sandra. She was just sitting there, without a care in the world, swinging her feet like a little kid from one of the flat-topped spikes of the creature while it seemed not to be retaliating in any way.

Then I thought: " _Wait… It's made of crystal. Solid crystal doesn't move around like-"_

And probably **just** because I thought it, the thing noticed that we did in fact exist and raised its head. Actually moved its head. "Uh…" I muttered as I mentally kicked myself for even **thinking** that. Still, that was freaking weird! That was pure crystal, bending and twisting as if it was some biological thing.

And it was just staring at me with its glowy eyes. Then, it made a single noise. Like a croon mixed with a dragon's hum. "Sandra?" I asked.

"What is that?" Christy finished for me.

"I named her Crystal!" the feline responded, not coming anywhere close to answering the question at hand.

Armalita just looked flabbergasted. "In all my days…" she muttered "You surprise me more and more. Sandra, that thing could be dangerous!"

Her raised tone, elicited a rumble from 'Crystal', and Sandra giggled as she patted the thing's neck. Its ears twitched at the sound of her giggling.

Armalita approached the creature, hand close to the trident on her back. If the thing attacked, she would be ready to retaliate with extreme prejudice. "Sister… Please step away from the beast."

Sandra hugged a nearby spike along where its spine would be, the foot-diameter base of the spike rather easy to grip. "But Crystal's so nice!" she refuted, her tail flailing again.

I stepped up. "Armalita…" I muttered, "Is that creature affected by Sandra's magic?"

The wolf warrior froze up. "I do not know…" she whispered back "Because the beast is not moving."

"Then…" I murmured.

Armalita approached the creature again, stepping up to it and Sandra. "Come, Sandra," she ordered sternly. She reached out to the feline, but her arms snapped back as Sandra's tail whipped around as it constantly was. After a few more cautious attempts, Armalita lifted Sandra up and quickly set her on the ground before her, leaping back to avoid becoming drunk from that tail. The beast gave that croon-hum noise as it reached a paw—if it counted as a paw… I'm just gonna call it a paw—towards Sandra almost like—dare I say it—a dog who doesn't want someone to stop petting it.

While Sandra took the time to decide, between obeying her sister as she does, and continuing to adore the monster behind her, Christy stepped forward as well to check on the beast itself. If anyone could handle herself, it was my girlfriend.

She came up on the side of where the beast was looking, or rather, in front of it if it were facing forward. The beast turned its head lethargically towards Christy, the soft spotlights of its eyes flickered, almost as if it was blinking. It just stared at her for a while, its ears twitching. Then, it moved its head slowly towards her and bumped her chest, which is where its head reached when it was lying in that position. Christy took a step back, blushing faintly and crossing her arms over herself in a reaction to the impact, which wasn't powerful but strong enough to knock her back a step.

Cobalt, keeping an eye on the beast, noticed it's lack of aggression, and after a look at Armalita, who was still trying to get Sandra to come with her, he began walking forward. 'Crystal's head turned to look right at him when his foot hit a stone with the obvious **clang** of metal against rock. This caused Cobalt to freeze up.

The creature cocked its head at Cobalt like a confused animal before slowly standing up. Sandra watched intently as it gradually got its thick paws on the ground and pushed itself up, towering almost to the ceiling of the cave. Physically, its dog-like form was all the more clear. Its legs were not abnormally long at all, and I had not expected them to be, but I was keeping myself wary of potential surprises.

Cobalt stood frozen, as did the rest of us, as the beast lumbered over to him. Its footsteps were loud, but they weren't stomps. Just heavy footsteps. It lowered its head to Cobalt's level and looked him in the eyes with its soft spotlights.

Armalita was ready to leap in and pull Cobalt aside if necessary, but neither she nor I was getting a threatening vibe from this thing right now. There was a long pause, and then… After a brutal, tense minute, the beast slowly butted Cobalt with its head and pressed lightly.

"I think it likes you," Christy told him, smiling.

"And I believe it seems not to be a danger." Armalita continued, nodding. "Sandra… That was very reckless of you."

"Okay!" Sandra apparently thought that was a compliment. She ran over and hugged the beast's neck. "Big sis thinks you're okay!" she told the crystal animal, who twisted its neck to look in her direction lazily.

"Noticing the animal's not dealing with drunkenness…" I commented. "Lucky little bugger…"

Sandra turned to her sister, clasping her hands excitedly and giving Armalita the big adorable eyes. "Can we keep her, sis? Can we? Can we?"

Armalita frowned, observing the beast. It seemed complacent with the group, lying back down again once we stopped being interesting to it. "...It could be very useful, if we wanted to make better time and wished to unload some weight onto it." she mused "If Sandra is so attached to it that she will stay atop it, then she would be out of range to cause us danger. Finally, it is clearly an excellent source of light… My only concern is that it will likely remain a source of light even when we stop and rest."

"So essentially, it's beneficial to take it if we have a watch schedule during the night?" I summed up.

"Precisely." Armalita agreed. The second perk she had mentioned, getting us out of Sandra tail range, was undoubtedly the deciding factor, though. "...Very well. Sandra, if we walk out of this room, and the beast follows us, you may keep him around."

"Oh, thank you thank you thank you!" Sandra exclaimed, jumping for joy before she ran over and jumped onto the beast's back. "Crystal! You can stay with us!"

The beast rumbled and stood up, turning its head to look back at Sandra before turning forward.

And that's how we all got our first collective pet. Cue the sigh, because this is all just going to get more complicated, isn't it…

But with Armalita leading the way, we stepped into the open corridor that could actually fit the beast, hoping that the beast could actually get out and wasn't totally stuck in this area. Our drunken companion would be heartbroken.

With Sandra on its back, the beast lumbered along with us in a rather docile manner. I guess this species just didn't care about most things. Perhaps it was apathetic by nature, just going wherever it could. Either way, when we walked out into an entirely different tunnel that also led up in a gradual slope, Sandra ducked and the beast's spikes ground against the roof with no apparent damage, before it was free.

"Okay. That works." Christy nodded.

"You two stay here with the new pet." I told Armalita and Cobalt and Raina "Christy and I will get the packs and stuff."

"An excellent plan." Armalita approved. Christy's tails lightning up and me shifting to emit aura flames, we walked side by side as we moved back into the cave system.

It took us five minutes to get there, carefully walking to ensure that we didn't make any mistakes. With Christy's tails haphazardly looping around everywhere and holding all of the packs, we took twenty minutes getting back with an even more careful approach because missing that crack in the wall would be **easy**.

We returned to the group safe and sound, and Armalita quickly turned and began the journey up the tunnel to the surface. I attempted to get the crystal beast to interact with me in the hopes that it would be as nice to me as everyone else.

It pretty much ignored me, actually. Oh well. Maybe it'd acknowledge me when it really counted, like if I've got a gun pressed against my head.

Oh. Dead end.

"That's ten minutes down the drain," Raina commented from the back. I knew she stayed in the back to make us wary of her presence, but that knowledge didn't make me unwilling to check every once in a while to make sure she wasn't about to slit our throats. I was monitoring her using my aura sense, but sometimes focused more on the rugged terrain before me.

"...Unfortunate." Armalita muttered "Particularly because, after this, Sandra wouldn't ever leave her new pet behind, and we have no way to get Crystal through to the other tunnel.

I frowned at the ceiling and reached out with my aura senses. As far as they could go through the solid rock upwards, and in all directions. Looking at the dead end, I noticed that it clearly wasn't completely solid at all. In fact, it looked like… A cave in.

"Okay, guys. We can dig this out." I proclaimed before Armalita could turn to lead us back. "There's open space behind it; I can just barely sense it. How do we want to do this?"

Christy raised her hand. "I can rip boulders out of the wall and cover us at the same time with my tails, redirecting rolling boulders past us and down the tunnel." she offered.

I nodded. "I can do the same with my aura flames."

Armalita, Cobalt, and Raina shared looks. It almost made Raina seem normal. They said nothing, which basically told me that they had no super powerful trick up their sleeves they had somehow kept hidden from me.

"Okay." I faced the wall, emitting aura flames as Christy started weaving two of her tails into barriers across us and used her other four to prepare to start tearing boulders out of the walls. I surrounded and reinforced her fluffy shields and also prepared to rip apart the wall in front of us.

Until…

"Weee!" Sandra exclaimed as she directed her newfound pet straight into the wall and blasted through it like a freaking bulldozer, collapsing the rest and putting our combined protection to the test. It held, though it wasn't the easiest thing we've ever done. In fact, Christy and I were panicking when Sandra just went and did something so reckless. Armalita facepalmed as hard as she was physically capable of.

"How was that not what we expected to happen?" she asked no single person in particular. "I am slipping in my judgement and leadership capacity, allowing myself to be distracted."

I turned and gave a weak grin at her as the boulders subsided and we had a path through to the sunlight. "Hey. At least it's an entertaining journey…" I offered.

"You call **that** entertaining?" Cobalt asked, quivering behind Armalita "Sandra's some sort of psycho!"

"A drunk person can display many seemingly random traits in the span of a few minutes." Armalita murmured in reply, detaching Cobalt from her shoulders, taking away his hiding place in the process. "Cobalt, you need to learn to stand against something frightening. I might not always be available to you."

"Uh, why not?" Cobalt pleaded.

"...This is the endgame of a war… That we are treating as a journey before we really have to do the deed we were assigned."

Cobalt took a deep breath. "Okay, Armalita." he sighed.

Armalita's brow quirked as Christy checked to make sure Sandra and her beast were sticking around. "If you have an objection, say it," she ordered, crossing her arms. "Show me that you aren't completely dependant on me."

Cobalt flinched back, but eventually complied. "It's just… It's kinda contradictory, talking about having fun when… When we have to kill someone at the end. It doesn't make any sense."

Armalita nodded solemnly, and looked to me. I nodded to her and stepped forward, setting a hand on his shoulder as I shifted forms. "Listen…" I told him. "I know this is hard. Believe me. It's pretty likely I'm going to have to be the one pulling the trigger here, I know what you must be feeling. But… This is a sort of escape, I think. It's probably not right to do it that way, to do anything other than rush over there and get the job done… But if we do that, I don't know if I'll be sane by the time we get there. I don't know if any of us—except for Armalita, she's pretty chill...—will be sane if we try to do that."

I sighed. "I'm afraid too, Cobalt. That's why we joke around and play as we go to our destination… Because we're afraid."

Cobalt looked at me, his eyes big and trusting, but pained as well. "I… I understand. I just wish.. It could be different." he murmured in reply.

I sighed once more. "Don't we all, dude…" I patted his shoulder and turned away to walk into the sunlight. "Don't we all."

Christy's tails wrapped around my shoulders in a sort of hug as she approached to wrap her arm around my shoulders as she walked up to me. "Jumping the gun a bit, Christy?" I asked, nudging her.

She chuckled and nudged me back. "Get used to it," she told me.

"Oh… I can do that." I agreed easily.

"Alright, you two lovebirds clearly have a lot of sexual tension that's been building up for months." Raina pushed the both of us apart. "But leave the disgusting overdone stuff to a professional. Like me."

Christy frowned as I leapt away from her sister. "Yes, it's true that we are sort of making up for lost time, but it's not from the past. It's about the future."

I nodded. "For a long time, we were best friends. It wasn't any more than that until we neared Crescent City."

"Mmhmm." Raina walked past us.

I shivered involuntarily as her fur brushed mine as she passed, feeling the vibes of sadism emitting off of her, from her stance, her expression, everything. I might sound like a broken record, but Raina kept finding ways to scare us all. It seemed she was containing that urge to hurt us right now, but… How long would it last?

"Behold..." Armalita murmured, looking at our new pet. We did, and saw that its light in its chest seemed to be glowing brighter.

"What's that mean?" I found myself asking.

"It's possible that Crystal is photosynthetic," Armalita explained, an approving look on her face. "And this may just mean that we do not have to gather much more food to survive out here."

"A campsite with a shower building and I might've mistaken this for a damn hiking trip," Raina commented, shielding herself from the sun with her clawed hands.

"I assume you guys use magic teleporters or some nonsense to make the shower work." I ventured quickly.

"Not necessarily." Armalita refuted. "We can't just teleport things anywhere. Making one would probably take a ton of magic power and time, and wouldn't be worth the time and effort. We do use some low-grade magic rings that cause the water to flow along pipes, but we do use plumbing."

"Oh." I nodded. "Okay then."

"Oooh, somebody's thinking about their girlfriend in the shower." Raina teased, making my face go as red as possible as I registered what Raina had just said. I blubbered for a bit before shaking my head violently.

"Nonononono!" I stammered "I wasn't!" I shook my head again to clear the mental image. "Wait, well, I wasn't until you said it, but that's your fault!"

My accusation fell on amused ears as Raina shrugged. "Sure thing, buddy boy."

My eye twitched. Twice. "Okay, fine. Showers are universal." I started hitting my head with my paw to jar it, which didn't work to well. "Christy? Can we get some duct tape for Raina's mouth?" I looked up at the beautiful fox girl only to find her in a similar state to myself, covering her eyes with her hands.

What **she** was thinking about, I didn't really know. But I was curious. I'd bring it up later.

For now, though, I stopped again and turned to Armalita to change the topic. I probably sounded desperate, but… "Armalita you said teleporting liquids was difficult, but what about Sandra's alcohol? Do you really think the bear bartender commissioned it?"

Armalita nodded. "It would cost a sizable amount for something so specific, but I would wager it costs less than supplying Sandra with that much alcohol in one place for long. Now, the bar itself can gain more traction and become a business rather than a government-funded station. And it is more likely that the government would rather take the investment in savings when it comes to transporting things."

"And let's not forget that with her not stuck in a bar, they could send her off to her death," Raina added with way too much cheer.

"...That is likely the result. And with her out of the way, they no longer needed me to remain." Armalita agreed, turning to me and Christy. "It appears that my sister and I owe you our lives."

"Oh, don't make this a debt thing. Please." Christy shook her head vigorously. "We're friends, remember?"

Armalita blinked, but nodded. "I did not intend it that way, I assure you," she explained, looking mildly uncomfortable. "...Although, from me… Something I would say is often taken literally."

"That… Would be because you're literal all the time." I pointed out. "Like… **all** the time."

The blue wolf taikan crossed her arms. "I will remind you that I am perfectly capable of humor," she said. With an utter lack of humor in her voice.

"She's made jokes before… Occasionally." Cobalt muttered.

Armalita blinked. "How would you know that?" she asked "...I am aware that you have been watching me specifically using your viewing circles, but to that extent?"

Cobalt now looked **extremely** uncomfortable. "Uh… Saying yes won't get my head chopped off will it?"

Okay, that was pretty funny. Christy and I started laughing while Armalita looked between the three of us with a blank look for a while. Raina chuckled and patted Cobalt on the shoulder, who was so embarrassed that he didn't even notice it was the Prosecutor herself. "Stalker much?" Raina asked, before walking off towards her sister and myself.

Armalita, I noticed, was doing her best not to smile. At all. Her mouth was twitching. She appraised the metal dog taikan before her, as he shifted uncomfortably. "...It hardly matters to me **what** it was. It is genuinely uplifting to know that someone cares enough to keep an eye on me, even if I can hold my own."

Oh, Armalita knew that Cobalt watching her wasn't anything protective… Well, maybe it was sort of protective. Sort of. Still, she clearly wasn't upset about Cobalt paying attention to her. "Hey, Raina," I commented. "Preeetty sure you can bug these two instead."

"Oh, I'll spread the chaos equally." Raina shrugged. "I'll tease you about you and Christy, I'll tease Christy when she tries to 'help' me, I'll have a great time messing with Cobalt in **all** ways, and now I can stress to Armalita that she has a shy stalker over and over, even if she points her trident at me when I say it too much. There are loads of ways to make all of you uncomfortable. Except Sandra. I don't think she **can** get uncomfortable."

This moment of clarity on Raina's part drew a nod from me. "No kidding. She's riding a chunk of crystal that moves. It **can't** be comfortable to sit on the thing like that."

"Like she's on a horse. That's how she's riding it." Christy agreed. "And people can get sore from riding a **horse** , much less a crystal beast. Whatever the species is called."

Armalita closed her eyes, taking her gaze off of the still extremely uncomfortable Cobalt. "My sister can manage it, I believe. You have seen her impressive yet inexplicable durability and strength. I would almost attribute that to magic, but as you can see, she only has one tail. Thus, she only has one ability. The rest of the inane things she does… I have no explanation for. The point is, she can probably handle sitting on a crystal monster for the entire trip."

She turned to the rest of us. "And be grateful for it, for the longer she stays up there, the less risk we are at of being struck by her drunkard magic."

We agreed that this was in fact the best thing, although I suggested that we test to see if Raina wasn't as bad as she normally was when she was drunk. Both Christy and Armalita pointed out to me that there are happy, lazy drunks, and there are also violent, unpredictable drunks. My idea could get us all killed.

Finally, the chatter ground to a halt. I looked south, to where we would be headed, and sighed. "We need to talk about what we're going to do when we get there." I ventured gloomily.

"Defenses?" Armalita was instantaneously as serious as possible again. The light amount of humor and calm she had allowed herself gone. Cobalt took his cue to stop paying attention, and Christy, wrapped her hand around my paw as she saw my expression change. The reassuring touch was warm, and I returned it as best I could with my mind muddled.

"First, there are automatic defenses. Land mines, for one. Pretty sure you know what those are. Then, near the front of the main compound where most assaults on a large scale might happen, there are automatic turrets. So we need to enter the compound from the west or east. Or south… But the compound's really close to the forest, and they take a lot of care to keep an eye on the huge field between the forest and the compound."

"They did not build the compound around a city?"

"More like next to it slash in it." I nodded. "Most of the residential stuff is to the west, though there is a little bit to the east. Our compound's more circular than crescent shaped, by the way."

Armalita nodded. "We will take that into account when we discuss our infiltration plan," she said. "What else is of note in the way of defenses?"

I closed my eyes, trying to remember. "Now, often, there will be decorations in rooms in the place. That's where this can get really dangerous. Decorations like fishbowls specifically."

Armalita's eyes widened slightly. "Small fish prokopians." she realized.

I nodded. "Yep. Heavily equipped guards playacting a goldfish or some other decorative fish in a bowl. They see an intruder, any taikan specifically, and they're out of that water loaded with guns or swords or both. Maybe knives."

"Charming image," Christy muttered.

"Oh, a heavily armed guy jumping out of a fishbowl?" Raina asked, putting her hand to her mouth to stifle her chuckles.

"They start off in their fish forms…" I muttered in response, looking at Armalita. "You know why they choose prokopians with small fish forms, I assume."

"The same reason that taikans with less useful abilities are put in less important positions." Armalita nodded. "A man who turns into a tiny fish is not useful in battle. Therefore they gear them up heavily and set them on guard duty in a decorative fish tank."

"Not just fish. Small mammals like mice, or birds in cages could also be guards in disguise." I explained quietly. "Not all of them are, but several in each area are."

"Must suck to be a prokopian with a beast form that can't breathe air," Raina commented, smirking.

"...All prokopians can breathe air in their beast forms." I refuted quickly. "...We're not sure why yet, but we can. Kind of busy with war stuff to do studies on the oxygen dependant nature of all beast forms."

Christy nodded. "That makes sense. Maybe… Maybe that'll change when we fix everything… If we can."

"For now… I just want to have our journey." I changed the topic, smiling at Christy. "And spend time with you."

She smiled at me. "I'd be happy to join you," she replied, and gave me a quick kiss before walking by, her tails brushing me along the way. Then, she stopped behind me. My aura senses told me so more than my ears had, and I hadn't turned. She turned halfway around and looked at me. "...Maybe stop envisioning me in the shower, first," she commented.

I went **bright** freaking red. "It's not my fault!" I protested, waving my arms as I turned to her. "Really, blame your sister!"

"Yeah?" Christy crossed her arms with a raised brow and an amused look. "After a brief intermission that contained **war planning**?"

"Uh… Yes?"

"Suuuure." Christy crossed her arms.

I was in a bad spot now. "Look, you're really, **really** hard to forget, you know?" I tried.

Christy tilted her head, considering. "Warmer." she waved for me to go on.

"And, uh… that's because you're really pretty." I ventured, hoping not to discover firsthand why other guys tell me not to cross girls.

"Warmer." Christy's smile widened while Raina sighed and muttered something along the lines of 'suck up'.

"Well, and I already know what it would look like, considering the incident on my first day in your house…" I knew I was screwed before I finished saying it.

"Very, very nearly." Christy swiftly grabbed my ankles with one of her tails and hung me upside down. "You need 'talking to girls' lessons. Maybe your lookalike can manage."

"Please don't kill me," I begged, trying not to laugh.

"Oh, no. I'm just going to see if the blood rushing to your head will cut off your little fantasies." Christy told me, using her tails to get her pack on her back before walking away with me in tow.

"And you're bugging me about my 'fantasies'" I did the finger quotes motion "When all I can think of right now is how you're loving how helpless I am against you."

Her ear twitched, and she dropped me on my head on the ground. Once I was finished flopping onto my back, she picked me up by the armpits and set me on my feet again. Then, the air of humor died the moment I saw her face.

"It's… Going to take a while before anything about helplessness doesn't hurt to hear," she whispered.

Crikey, that wasn't supposed to go that way. "I'm sorry…" I apologized. "I got carried away."

"We both did," Christy admitted. "Just the… **Energy** that we have, that bubbliness at just having survived and being back to normal… We need to cool down."

"Agreed." I nodded. "...Can we have another kiss before we do this 'cooling down' thing, though?"

She saw my grin and rolled her eyes with a smile. "C'mere, dog boy."

After that kiss, I pulled back with an equal grin to hers. "Anytime, fox girl." I returned.

"Ugh, can we get going now?" Raina asked.

Armalita stepped up. "We need to make a plan," she announced, removing a map from a pack and unfolding it. It was pretty incomplete in the prokopian side, however. "Making a beeline for the prokopian capital would be suicide, and we would be going straight through the battlefield." she pointed out.

I reached into my stuff quickly, hoping beyond hope that I magically had my own map, which Armalita and I could combine into a full map of the known world. A really small amount of the world was known… Like, a **really** small amount, but still. Nope, no map.

Christy looked at the map. But… The battlefield's pretty much everywhere." she frowned.

I hustled over. "I don't have a prokopian map… Because I really shouldn't have needed to bring it from Christy's home, but... " I took a close look. "Christy's right. There'll be a bloodbath if we go anywhere near those battlefields.

"Then we have two options…" Armalita said grimly. "We could try to save time by trying to sneak through the war zone… Something I doubt will work, and the other option…"

"Demon mountain." Raina finished, tracing a path from where we were around the war zone to a mountain on the border of both countries and the outer, uninhabited territories.

"No." I shook my head. "There **has** to be a better way to go than that demon infested mountain."

Armalita frowned. "Unfortunately, I believe it is our safest option. We can avoid the war range and hopefully skirt around the demons' territory."

"Woo! Demons In skirts!" Sandra exclaimed from atop her pet, Crystal, her fists raised in the air.

"Where did… Never mind." Christy decided. "But that may be, Armalita. I am heavily resistant to flames because of the passive effect if my fire magic, and I'm pretty sure those cursed flames would qualify…"

I stared at her. Wait, are you suggesting taking that risk? What if they don't count, Christy? You need those tails!"

She rolled her eyes. They're just green flames, Gabe. That burn in water. I'll be fine."

I harrumphed and looked back down at the map. "I would suggest going around the other way to Christy's home, rounding around it, and going to the compound… But that's a longer distance right now."

"We have six weeks, tops, until the lack of leadership in our country affects our war effort, as that is the typical interval that we send new troops out. The path around Demon Mountain will take perhaps three weeks, and right now because we would have to sneak through hostile towns, the path through Christy's home could take four or even five with such a large group to conceal."

"...Crap." I muttered. "We're going to Demon Mountain, aren't we…"

"Seems like it." Christy nodded.

"In the interest of extra time, for both rest and planning" Armalita asserted."let us begin."

I finally nodded grimly again. "Okay,i've" I said, shifting my pack from the ground onto back using my aura flames, doing the same for Christy out of courtesy before she could use her tails to do it. Once the others had their gear on, we finally set out on our next journey.

* * *

The first day was pretty easy. We had started closer to midday, and the ground was flat (with the exception of the occasional tunnel in the ground, whether they be caverns or little more than ankle biters… Ow…), and after our first short break at five in the afternoon, we offloaded our stuff onto the handy beast known as Crystal.

Crystal looked even sillier with Sandra on its neck and a bunch of backpacks hanging from its rugged spikes, but it didn't seem to care in the slightest. We were just glad that the beast continued to follow us. Perhaps Sandra was going something to ensure that, but there was no way I could tell. I still remembered her eyes flashing before she dislocated my shoulder

And when it came time to stop for the night, we were hardly exhausted at all. My feet were a bit sore, not that I could tell how the others were feeling, but that first eighteen miles (three miles per hour or six total hours, approximately) had probably been the easiest tI'vehad yet. The soft grass of the wilderness here definitely helped. And with Christy cooking our dinner, there was no way that we wouldn't go to bed happy and content.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I glanced away from my cooking pot, having added a late ingredient into the mix, as I heard the noise. Raina was once again playing with the gold object we've had since the start of our journey.

She sat against the tree, dragging her claws down it with one hand while the other hand flipped our little gold switch up and down over and over again, like a bored older child would play with a ball. It was literally like seeing two sides of her. One side was taking out the sadism she was no longer allowed to inflict on actual people on the tree, and the other was playing repetitively with a toy she found lying around.

I smiled. "Raina, do you like fruit?" I asked, "i'm thinking about putting some apple slices in here."

"Whatever works for you." My sister replied, her claws digging into the tree a little more.

"C'mon, I know you have a preference." I pressed.

She turned her attention away from the gold object, letting it land switch side up in her palm. "Which preferences?" She asked, gaining that sadistic smirk that she sported often. "Food, or how exactly i'd make you bleed?" She let go of the tree and the gold object, letting it hit the ground. She flexed her claws. "Would I like making you bleed from your chest? Your arms? Your chin and face? I dunno. I haven't tried yet. But I wouldn't put your blood in that pot. I bet it tastes nasty. At least Buddy Boy's blood tastes kind of metallic, which is interesting.

I involuntarily shuddered but soon regained my composure. "I'm asking if you like apples." I stated. Then, I paused and shook my head as I registered that properly. "Wait, better question… Are you a vampire? Did those sickos in charge turn my little sister into a vampire somehow?"

Please don't say yes… Please don't say yes…

"Naw, I just like to keep my claws clean." Raina shrugged. "I started doing that somewhere during the torture. My fur was practically permanently brown during that time, what with being in the worst dungeon anybody could locate. So I tried to clean my coat up somehow. Dungeon grime tastes awful, by the way, but I thought the blood I tasted on my claws tasted worse. Kind of why I assume your blood would taste awful. Or maybe it was just the mix of bold and dungeon grime. But whatever."

She was getting chatty now. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? The bad thing was clearly this stinking dungeon that was apparently part of Raina's torture. "I'm sorry…" I murmured. "You never deserved any of that."

Raina shot me a look. "It's not your problem." She told me harshly. "It's not a problem at all. Those are happy memories."

"But they're not natural happy memories, don't you get that?" I pleaded. "They're fake happy. Forced happy. Magic and tortured induced brainwashing!"

"So?"

I blinked. "So? Why doesn't that matter to you?"

She inspected her claws. "Because I still enjoy it." Her tone turned into that seductive voice that I think she used on Gabriel when he was being tortured. "Don't get me wring, I didn't enjoy all of it. Do you see a speck of dirt in my coat?" Her tone went back to 'normal'.

I had to admit, she was keeping her coat as clean and pure white as physically possible. The rest of us had dust in our fur, definitely. Even Gabriel, who was not taking the chance of being in his human form at all. Even Sandra, who had the high ground, had… Well, she had more dirt in her fur than any of us actually.

"That's… That's not the point!" I exclaimed. "The point is-"

"The point is that brainwashing can't be fixed entirely by anything other than brainwashing." Raina shot at me, her claws flexing again as she curled and uncurled her fingers. "And the other point is that I don't really care what you think. I'll do what I enjoy doing. And maybe I'll hold back a bit, just so you don't get all pissy at me. Or wrap your tails around me like they were tentacles to stop me from moving."

I flinched. "This isn't one of your nasty picture stories or whatever it is you've based your… What is that, coping? Your… Toxic side. I'm protecting other people from you and I'm protecting you from yourself." I told her.

"Hm." was her reply. "Toxic side, that's a good way of saying it. I like that."

I was forced to return to my cooking. "Last chance, Raina. Apples?"

"...Sure."

I smiled and prepared one of my tails with a knife, using a different tail to hold some apples up. That tail held a chopping board with apples in the mix. I stole a glance at Raina, and while she looked away quickly, she had definitely been checking to make sure I actually added the apples.

She may be stubborn about it, but that sloppy job of brainwashing would fall apart eventually, over time. And if it didn't, if it worked the way Raina claimed it would, then we would simply have to work it out of her the old fashion way. The way people change on their own, through kindness and family.

I turned away from the group as I continued cooking, allowing a frown to appear on my face that I did not need Raina seeing. No matter how she progressed, it hit me again that Raina would never be the innocent little girl she once was.

Sighing, I tried to let myself get absorbed into my activity again, setting my mind back on track; how long should the food be cooked with Apple slices in it?

I knew the answer, obviously. Forty minutes of careful slow cooking later, much of which did not directly involve the apple slices, I had dinner prepared. "Everyone, stop what you're doing and discover the glory of a single dish version of steak and roasted vegetables with warm apples diced in."

Now, Arnalita and Cobalt moved a little slower than Gabriel, obviously, but Raina moving at the same speed Gabriel was meant something to me. Sandra stayed with her beast, Crystal, who had laid down much like a dog, partially curled up. Sandra was snuggled up in the middle of the crescent that the beast created with its body. I would have to bring her her dish.

What everybody else came to was a pit filled with roasted vegetables, diced apples, and cubed steak that I had cooked. "I know it's not exactly travel food." I admitted. "I've still got some things I could cook into actual meals in my gear. Occasionally we can eat what I cook, but we'll still have to have travel food most of the time."

"It looks impressive." Armalita complimented me. "Did you cook the steak properly before you chopped it into cubes?"

"Absolutely." I brought another of my tails forward, holding some bowls, and began distributing the food. "Gabe, wait until everyone is served." I suddenly snapped.

The jackal froze. "Sorry." He muttered, not happy about having to wait to eat my cooking.

I rolled my eyes. "Relax, ya jackal." I told him.

"Yeah, you'll get plenty of time to taste what my sis-" Raina started before I promptly scrapped my tail around her mouth, the thick fluff silencing her.

"Cooked." I finished for her, assuming that Raina had another toxic comment to make.

Raina pulled my tail off of he mouth in an impressive display of strength. "You are mrs. No Fun." She complained.

"Not gonna have a repeat of the shower image incident." I hissed at my sister. "Now shut up and take your dinner."

"Geez, you're all over the place in terms of personality today." She commented as she took the food I was offering her.

I blinked as I handed food to Armalita and Cobalt. Was I acting strangely? I looked down at the pot. There were enough for everybody to have seconds, as I planned. I set the pot down on the ground after sweeping an area clear of fire hazards and grabbed the bowl I had served myself with my hands.

I beckoned Gabriel over and sat by Armalita, cautiously stretching a tail with Sandra's bowl wrapped in it over to the feline, who dug in the instant she had it. I had to whip my tail back to avoid Sandrams tail waving towards it.

"You wished to speak with me?" Armalita asked before I could say anything.

I flinched at how obvious I was being, but bravely forged on. "Armalita… am I acting strange?"

The blue wolf taikan looked at me for three seconds. Then, she nodded. "You and Gabriel are both behaving very strangely. Your moods are rapidly shifting, you are hiding a lot of stress, and the both of you have been acting almost frighteningly close to each other, like a couple who won't leave each other alone. And you are doing all of this at the same time."

We were silent while Armalita sighed. "My diagnosis is that you are simply panicking. You have a lot of stress, and at the same time, you feel like once again you have a potential expiration date, and this time, instead of pretending not to be starting to like each other, the both of you have admitted it. So now not only do you feel like you have to be as witty and loving towards each other, you feel like you have to be serious and grim about the potential end to this war or our lives. You don't know what to do at which time."

And silence reigned. With the exception of Sandra gobbling up her dinner. While we absorbed this, our eyes automatically tracked to said noise, seeing Sandra offering her giant pet a bite, which it seemed to calmly refuse, turning its head away slightly.

"...okay…" I murmured. "I mean…"

"We were getting really excited really easily." Gabriel commented.

"And sensitive to mental images~" My sister put in.

"That too…" I winced. "Armalita, I think you're right, but… I do to know how i'm supposed to act right now, i'll be honest: I'm a bit lost."

"my advice is to focus on one thing at a time… And show some restraint." Armalita suggested. "Right now, the very fact that you are alive is adding onto the things that are driving you to act crazy. So eat your dinner, and go to bed early. Frankly, you have earned your rest. Cobalt and I will handle watch."

"Okay, Armalita." Cobalt seemed quick to agree. Not willing to be on Armalita's bad side or even her stern side, Gabriel and I nodded.

Subdued slightly, I attempted to gather myself. Acing recently admitted love for the jackal beside me, my thoughts naturally turned to him again. I let my mind do as it would while I ate; if I was acting like myself, not forcing anything or thinking about stressful things, tha should be all right.

Something occurred to me. "Raina… Where did you put the gold object?" I asked, unwilling to part with the treasure we've been keeping with us for so long.

"Left it near the tree." Raina replied, too busy eating the dinner to look at me. I leaned to the side to see past my sister, seeing the glimmering gold object in the fading light, and I snaked a tail across the area to grap it and bring it back. Once I had it in my hand, I couldn't help but look at it for a while.

"Greatest mystery in the land." Gabriel said beside me with a grin. "One of these days, we'll find out what that switch is for."

I smiled. "That'll be a good day. I'll survive a war for that."

Gabriel laughed: "I'll survive it for **you**." He told me, finishing the food in his bowl. "Seconds?"

Even Armalita and Cobalt joined me in my chuckling. "Are you sure you don't just keep me around for food?" I asked lightly.

"What? No!"

I moved two of my tails and picked up the pot and serving spoon, giving him seconds before putting the pot back down. I smiled. "I know." I acknowledged. "Besides, i'll survive the war for you too."

"Second only to your mystery gold object." Gabriel quipped, his joking tone a great sight to behold.

Raina held an empty bowl out, expecting seconds. I didn't know what to say to see if I could get her to open up more. I wanted casual conversation between us. However, not knowing how to do that right now, I settled for refilling her bowl with the stew.

The meal passed quickly after that. As had been common recently, I got glowing reviews about my work. Raina stared at me for a while before deciding it was worth speaking up: "thanks."

"Did you like the apples?" I pressed.

"Would'a preferred a fruit like a plum or a peach, but apples are good. Now leave me alone."

"Raina…" I murmured, but she rounded on me.

"Do you really want me taking my torture withdrawal out on you?" She asked in a mock-sweet voice. "Doesn't matter if your passive strength magic bonus makes your tails one of the only things I have ever not been able to cut through, i'll still find a way to make you bleed." She promised.

She must have checked when she pulled my tails away from her face. Six tails with of strength magic did make for extremely durable tails that can block pretty much anything available to the warring countries. Looking into her eyes, I realized my sister really wa prepared to give me some decent wounds if I didn't back off **right now**.

"Okay." I nodded, "get some rest. Can we trust you to take watch after Armalita and Cobalt?"

"I don't know, **can** you?"

Her sadistic smirk threw that idea out the window. "No, just get some rest." I decided, backing off. "Take a sleeping bag. We've got extra because Gabe and I can use my tails as a woven mattress and covers. But we do need them to last several weeks, so try not to tear apart all three of the available sleeping bags..."

"Shut up and go sleep like Armalita ordered you to." Raina ordered, pointing towards Gabriel, who was using his aura flames to brush aside anything that would be uncomfortable to sleep on for anybody in a sleeping bag.

I nodded blearily. "Okay." I agreed, wondering why I felt so tired now. Maybe the food in my stomach was making me sleepy. Well, warm, cooked food will do that to a person. Walking over, I elongated four of my tails and started weaving them over and over again until we were looking at about a three foot mattress made of my own tail fluff, and I let myself fall onto it. Two of my tails remained their normal length in case we were ambushed or something. Even with the others on watch.

"Night…" I muttered "Geez, it was a longer and more tiring day than I thought."

"Hold your monologuing and go to sleep." Armalita reprimanded me.

"Yep… We've dragged this night on long enough." Gabriel agreed, lying next to me while I further elongated the four tails I had used before and wove us a set of covers.

"You have the best tricks ever." Gabriel complimented me as he settled in.

"Thanks…" I murmured as I closed my eyes.

* * *

 **Christy is, as far as I know, the only fictional character I've seen (or created, obviously) that can use weaving as a method of combat. Yes, Annabeth Chase used it to escape from some spiders, and deal with Arachne, if that's how her name is said. However, she didn't use it for physical combat. Considering that Christy can make walls and protective spheres using her tails by tightly weaving them together felt like a fun addition to her repertoire.**

 **This chapter was a bit weird for me. First off, I had to write that random nonsense near the start. Seriously, that was the most difficult thing about this chapter. I don't like random nonsense. Well, scratch that. I like random nonsense, but not RANDOM random nonsense. I like 'random nonsense' that actually serves a purpose in some secret way. So that was a bit difficult to write. Originally, I had planned it to be way less tame than that, but that still works.**

 **And Sandra gets a pet, and at the same time, everyone else gets a way to keep her away from them. This wasn't some thrown in thing. I had planned its existence, partially because the species was one original design of mine that I wanted to highlight. I was really proud of its design, and abilities.**

 **Finally, Christy and Gabriel are torn between panicking about everything life had to offer in the near future and trying to cater to their emotional needs at the same time. So that turned into a mess, as Armalita explains. The two are pretty adaptable, so we'll see how easy it is for them to manage.**

 **This chapter really begins the next journey portion of the story. Now, I think I've buggered up the timeframe slightly... With their velocity, the journey could conceivably take less than three weeks by a little, maybe two and a half, but with the rugged circle shape that the two countries make together being as small as it is, and with Crescent City's position being undefined in the story as of yet... I dunno, perhaps I should build a more specific mental map of the countries in my head. What i have currently is 'these towns are in these areas'.**

 **That all being said, I feel accomplished about the path this story can take now. A clear destination, a goal, etcetera. Please review, give me your thoughts, and I hope to see all of you next time.**


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Hello!**

 **Amber: It's nice to see you all again.**

 **Me: And I'm cheerful because I've finished a KatJ chapter! Oh, I'm happy about this one.**

 **Amber: And Jango came home covered in some weird mint green goop and he's washing it out, so we can have an author's note without him barging in.**

 **Me: Although that much of a mess means he was either setting a trap, or, and this second option has only a point-zero-zero-zero-zero one. percent chance of being true, maybe he fell into a trap instead.**

 **Amber: I wouldn't bet on it... Anyways, we should get to reviews.**

 **Me: We should. Starting with West, my ever vigilant friend. Yes, defeating the band that contained Christy's Will didn't take an incredibly long amount of time, but I felt it was reasonable considering how many resources they have at their disposal. And yes, Crystal, Sandra's new pet and mount. I can imagine your response to seeing it in particular, heheh... Granted, none of us got out any better off. Yes, I will try and keep it within the 'borders' of what is reasonable in terms of mature content, and it probably won't get any stronger than what I've had so far. Raina's prescence invokes all sorts of thoughts that people might not want to have. Thank you for your trust.**

 **Amber: Someone named Ralmon reviewed the first chapter of this story, with a very honest and helpful review.**

 **Me: Yes, thank you Ralmon. We had a discussion regarding your review in PM, so that's cleared up.**

 **Amber: AveragePichu is also back. Hi, Phillip. Thank you for spotting errors you saw. It's very helpful to be informed of those things so they can be fixed.**

 **Me: Kalmarin reviews chapter three telling me he laughed a lot in that scene in chapter two. Unspecified, which will lead me to assume you're talking about the clothes issue Gabriel and Christy had.**

 **Amber: Aewynessa, it's good to see you and Mona. Although... What common fictional archetype would something like Crystal even fulfill? So... I'm gonna get off topic here. Hi, Mona. I think your author would appreciate it if you didn't spoil things... It's a big responsibility not to.**

 **Me: And finally, we have Eric566. Hello, my friend. Thank you for joining us. You have no idea how happy I am that I surpassed your expectations. I don't know what kind of care Sandra would even need to give a living crystal creature that is photosynthetic. And... Having pacifists as protagonists was one of the many things about this story that lead me to have a lot of pride concerning it. Oh, and Demon Territory. Yeah, very ominous. Speaking of Demon territory, I imagine you and all the other readers are just waiting to get on with the story so that you can get there! Well, don't let me stop you!**

 **Amber: Chapter start!**

* * *

 **Chapter Twelve: Goals and Dreams**

I was dreaming. I could tell. My surroundings were different, but I felt peaceful, which seemed to counter what I should have felt, which would have been panic at potentially getting kidnapped by who knows what.

The moment that thought entered my brain, my hand felt at my neck, only to find fur. Right, okay, Christy. Back to the present. Last time I had vivid dreams, they were nightmares about my sister. Now that I had her back, my dreams weren't very specific. There was a bit of a thing last night that I mistook for reality when I thought my sister was back to the way she used to be. And acting shy when Gabriel tossed her her cloak. But I was only fooled as a result of wishful thinking; It was everything I wanted that I didn't already have.

But without that wishful thinking, without that hope, the resistance provided by my mind magic as a passive effect was there to help me know that I wasn't waking up in a **real** house in a comfy bed.

I sat up slowly and took my surroundings in. My hand bumped into something, and Gabriel mumbled something in his sleep next to me. I giggled as I saw him taking up as much of the bed as he could, his arms and legs splayed out over the side of the mattress.

Then I tickled him awake, making sure to lean back because I didn't want a bruised muzzle from waking him up like that. When he bolted up, shouting, I waited for him to rub the sleep out of his eyes in his human form. He shifted to his beast form upon seeing me. "Best dream ever," he commented, either referring to the one his fictional self had just had, or the dream version of him was just as aware as I was that I was dreaming.

"Hey."

Gabriel's voice sounded through the air, but Gabriel hadn't spoken. That was fine; Dreams could be inconsistent and inaccurate. I smiled and nudged him. "Hey." I returned softly.

But Gabriel was suddenly looking out towards the rest of the room, and I looked as well. There, leaning against a door to whatever was beyond my dream, was who looked like Gabriel in his human form. The Gabriel next to me was in his lucario form. I blinked. Two Gabriels?

I blinked hard. I didn't want **that** kind of dream. One Gabriel was a handful. A wonderful handful and fun to deal with, but a handful. This human Gabriel had a much more generic looking bow, although it was still blue.

"Over here." he waved. He stepped away from the door.

"Oh you're kidding me." the Gabriel at my side rolled his eyes. " **Now**? You're doing this… **Now**? I finally get a decent dream and this is how it's going to go?"

Oh, fun. It was a dream where everyone around me thought it was real. Characters, everyone!

Then my eyes fell on the white shadow of the other Gabriel, and things clicked, making me feel real dumb. "Holy crap, you're Gabriel's imaginary friend," I observed a little louder than might have been necessary.

He chuckled at me. "Pleased to meet you." he extended his hand as Gabriel and I got off of the comfy bed we wound up in in the dream.

Dream Gabriel and I looked at each other, and we communicated with eye contact alone. Next thing the ultra-powered dream invader knew, we simultaneously punched him in the jaw, Gabriel using his human form fist before quickly shifting to lucario form once more.

He lay on the ground, eyes wide and full of 'what the heck just happened to me'. Dream Gabriel and I crossed our arms, looking down at him. " _Oh, crap,"_ I thought to myself. " _This is a dream version of Gabriel… I punched the matchmaker without him. That wasn't very nice of me."_

Well, I'd be sure to tell him all about it. For now… "You're Gabriel's lookalike." I proclaimed, keeping the stern expression on my face.

"First time for everything," he grumbled as he stood up and dusted himself off. "Punched by a happy couple for matchmaking."

Gabriel stepped forward. "We agreed that we'd do it the moment we saw you together," he explained. Now I was suspicious. Were we sharing a dream? The way the Gabriel lookalike addressed my Gabriel, and nod immediately addressing me implied that he was actually here, but I didn't think sharing a dream was possible…

The lookalike looked between the two of us, giving each of us a thorough up and down look. Then he laughed. "Oh! You two think you're dreaming regularly."

Gabriel blinked, turning to me. I smiled at him, and he smiled back. Yep, we were sharing a dream. I don't think I could have imagined such a sincere expression. We turned back to the guy who had been making our lives difficult in unison.

"Want to tell us why you thought it best to not only make our first kiss too awkward, but then seal yourself in a room with people who might want revenge?" I asked with a raised brow. I was smiling, but given the nature of this guy's interference, he deserved both a hug and a brutal beating.

"Probably should have made it less obvious it was me," he replied, his tone conveying how happy he was with his choice. "Seriously, though. Either one or both of you would have died back in that compound if you weren't so devoted to each other. I'd love to say I did it just to save your lives, although matchmaking gets very entertaining when you're as old as I am…"

I raised an eyebrow. "You look Gabriel's age, maybe younger." I pointed out.

"And has looked eighteen since I was like two." Gabriel nudged me with his input. That was right. I had not thought of it. Come to think of it, I must not be using one hundred percent of my brain right now. Gabriel grinned at me. "You think you're fully awake?" Gabriel continued shrewdly, a grin on his face.

"We're asleep, Gabriel." I jabbed at him, exactly how the boy expected me to. We quickly shared a laugh and looked back to Other Gabriel. "What are you still doing here?" I asked.

"Well, the ultimate goal wasn't to let you have…" Other Gabriel coughed dramatically " **Fun** times together in the dream. I did it because I wanted to meet Christy and I reckoned your Gabriel would want to supervise the occasion."

"You have a habit of manipulation and putting people to sleep." Gabriel nodded shrewdly. I barked a laugh out at the lookalike's expression, one of amusement (he had started the joke, after all) and embarrassment.

"That's about right, I plead guilty." Other Gabe shrugged. "You can't deny it worked, though."

Both of us were forced to acknowledge that point. "We're all alive." I agreed.

"Except for one." Gabriel's expression turned dark. "All except for one."

The expression he got in response from his lookalike was more… Weary. "...Yeah." he agreed while I comforted Gabriel using my tails and one of my arms to hug him. "Except for one. You've probably guessed this by now, Gabriel, but I know how it feels to not get everything right too. I'm an old timer. I've got a **lot** of experience with both screwups and success."

"How much of an old timer?" I asked out of the blue, hoping to change the topic. I didn't need Gabriel wallowing in shame and his double wallowing in memories. I finally got to meet this guy, I wanted to know more about him. And I didn't want Gabriel making himself worse off by thinking about it over and over; That wasn't a healthy thing to do.

Other Gabe coughed.

Now my Gabriel was intrigued. "Well?" he asked, apparently not knowing.

"...Three and a half billion."

Our jaws would have hit the floor if physics worked like that. "Three and a half... **What**!?" Gabriel and I asked in perfect unison.

"Maybe a little less, maybe a little more. Somewhere around that mark." he winced. "Yeah… I know. I've been around for a long time."

"Gabe." I elbowed my boyfriend. "Maybe he's an immortal ancestor of yours or something."

My joking tone was met with skepticism, as Gabe was still recovering from the bombshell and Other Gabe was still slightly embarrassed about the situation. "I can tell you how Gabriel and I look exactly alike," he said. Our ears perked up in unison as it seemed storytime was rolling around. We could relax here, it seemed. He saw our expressions and chuckled. "Geez, you look like little kids on christmas."

"Damn right. You always had a habit of being vague, and now you're talking." Gabriel told him gleefully.

He blinked, seeming to deflate somewhat. "You haven't ever complained about it." he noted "...When using a joking tone, you have, but… Has it truly been weighing on you for that long?"

"Well…" Gabriel's voice caught "Not really. Because you were there since I was two, it kind of meant more that you were still there and what you taught me and helped me with than your actual backstory. Still, it's a bit exciting, and I do want to hear more now that I know exactly how old you are."

Other Gabe brightened and nodded. "Well… First, I should explain how the multiverse works."

We blinked.

"...Essentially, this world, these two countries, are just the tip of the iceberg for a lot. A **huge** amount of places. The countries are a tiny part of the overall world. The overall world is a tiny part of your universe, which is essentially the bubble that everything a vast majority of things can reach within that plane. The multiverse is essentially an infinitely-spanning sea of those bubbles, making the universe an infinitesimal speck in the multiverse, and the multiverse is where I come from."

"Uh…" I muttered.

"Parallel worlds, is that what you're talking about?" Gabriel asked Other Gabe.

He shook his head. "No. Parallel universes are different. Yes, they qualify as a multiverse. A lot of universes have parallel universes within them, stacked on top of each other either through their timeline or other means of existing. The multiverse I am talking about isn't dimensionally separated, it's spatially separated. And what I am and the method that results in Gabriel looking just like me is in relation to that multiverse."

"This is complicated," I commented, trying to wrap my head around it.

"It's about to get more complicated." Other Gabe promised. "In the multiverse, there is a concept we call 'waves of influence'."

"...Huh?" we asked, once again in unison.

"What they are… Well, it's hard to quantify. I don't personally know how to quantify it in a way that makes sense yet. The point is, they exist and they result from significant events in a timeline. Time is a complicated thing. It can flow in entirely different ways in different universes; In this one, for example, there was never such a thing as destiny. It's more of a big ball of wibbly wobbly… Timey wimey… Stuff... But in some other universe, it may be structured like a straight line for example. A universe where destiny exists and things can be set in stone. But in both, when a significant event happens, waves of influence are released by the universe it is contained in, spreading throughout the multiverses."

He took a deep breath. "When someone specific does something significant within the timeline, in other universes, the chances of someone looking exactly like the first person existing increases. While Gabriel still would likely have been born, if a version of him had not done something significant, he might have a different appearance, perhaps different abilities."

"So… You're the original?" Gabriel asked, brow raised.

To our surprise, the seeming-eighteen year old shook his head. "Probably not. I've only been around for three and a half billion years. The lifespan of the multiverse is a **lot** longer. I'm probably not the original, but I can say I've had the greatest influence… Because I'm a multiversal being and not a universal being, plus the effect of my nature…"

"And that means…?" I prompted him.

"I am what is called a sentient core." Other Gabe revealed calmly. "Specifically, the sentient core of aura. That means I am the sentience behind **all** aura. This body is… Pretty much just a shell for my mind. My actual body is all aura in the multiverse, which… Gives me a rather immense impact on the timelines of every universe out there."

"And so most universes would have a version of you?" Gabriel clarified "And the version in this universe is me?"

"Yes, and yes." he confirmed.

"How do you even handle that?" I asked. "Being everywhere at once?"

"With practice and time, I slowly climbed out of the insanity that I was put in when I wound up this way." Other Gabe murmured. "As for the power it grants me… Not well. My core, this body, holds the power that all of the aura available to me has. Which… Is all of the aura in the infinite multiverse. If I am not incredibly careful, I could destroy everything. That is why I did not interfere directly in this conflict. I am afraid that if I make a mistake, my attempt to help could turn out a lot worse. Granted, my practice leads to me likely succeeding nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, I am not willing to take a chance."

We were silent after that. The old timer seemed sad. He was hunched over in a manner that suggested defeat. "All I want to do is make it as easy as I can." he finished quietly. "And if doing that requires me to speed up your relationship, then I would do that. So I did."

There was a long, awkward pause as we listened in to the 'sentient core'. But then, we smiled. "I understand." I nodded.

"Me too," Gabriel said more quietly, Malvolio's death still likely weighing on his mind. I don't think he would ever really be able to forgive himself for that. He was too good. His goals too pure. It would always haunt him. What I could do was remind Gabriel that we were both still here, and that my sister was here, that my friends Armalita and everyone else were here…

My family was right in front of me, all of them. Now that they were there, there wasn't anything we couldn't do for the future. And the best thing for Gabriel was for him to constantly be reminded that he did have a family, no matter what.

"So what now?" Gabriel asked.

"Now? I guess you wake up. You got your licks in, and some voluntary exposition thrown your way, and are in a good mood still. I should probably let you get a deeper sleep for now, so you will feel even more rested when you wake up. When that happens…" Other Gabe turned to my Gabriel. "Your team should have a serious discussion about the most dangerous people in your compound, so all of you can help with planning."

Gabriel took the wisdom in stride, nodding. "Hey, are you going to come back so you can meet everyone else?" he asked.

He shook his head. "Nah, not right now at least. It's a miracle Armalita and Christy can handle **one** of us" he grinned.

"Make me immune to Sandra's magic?"

"And spare myself the potential hilarity? Really?"

I rolled my eyes. "Alright, I think sleep is a good thing to have. The deeper the better tonight."

Other Gabe patted my Gabriel on the head. "Have a good night, then." he smiled as he turned away from us and promptly burst in a flash of aura energy, disappearing seconds before I lost 'consciousness'.

* * *

I woke up cuddling with Gabriel. My tails still woven into the bed we had been sharing. The remaining two of my tails I was using in the same way as my arms: cuddling with Gabriel. He was awake, I could tell, and had probably been for a while, but the way I was sleeping, he couldn't have and probably wouldn't have wanted to move.

I let him know I was awake by moving, moving the two free tails I had off of him, His eyes popped open as I gave him my smile.

He smiled back, bringing his paws up to his eyes. In the split second that his paws went to rub his eyes, he shifted so that it was with fists that he more efficiently rubbed his eyes with, and then shifting back to his beast form.

"Hey," I said. "What's up with that? It's almost like you assume I like you better in your beast form. You look just as good either way."

He blinked. "...No comment." he said, sitting up and pulling the 'covers' made of my woven tails down a bit. "Okay, comment. I'm used to being in my beast form constantly since Taika. And I guess it has something to do with the fact that you're a taikan. If I'm **like** you, it's even easier to feel comfortable around you."

I sat up and then stood up, waiting for Gabriel to do the same. As I unwove my tails into their normal size, I hugged him from behind and to the right. "You can do whatever you want to," I told him quietly. "Just don't think I have any preferences either way."

He paused and put his hand (yes, hand) on my arm that was around him. "I appreciate it, Christy. Thank you." he closed his eyes and pressed his head against my cheek for a moment before breaking the hug and stepping back.

"Isn't that sweet. And just begging to have your heads knocked together." A familiarly sultry tone sounded behind us, making us bristle and leap away so we didn't get our throats slashed. Raina seemed to be awake already, or she had gotten out of her sleeping bag, snuck up on us on stick-littered ground, and got behind us within ten seconds.

"Do you ever sleep?" Gabriel breathed.

"Raina…" I murmured, again not knowing what to say to my sister.

She twirled the gold object we've had for so long on one of her claws, and I worried she'd be leaving marks all over it, because Cobalt is probably tougher than gold. However, when it fell into her palm, I saw no scratch marks. Come to think of it, neither of us had ever tried to actually damage the thing, probably because we thought it was important. But it was **gold**. Gold was relatively easy to break…

"Yes, I think we've established what my name is." she rolled her eyes at me. "And sleeping's for chumps. If you're roughing it, which everybody but you two lovebirds are."

There was a pause.

"And now that you've accepted your dependent, lovebirdiness, it's no longer a valid means of teasing you," Raina concluded with a nod.

I noticed something. "Raina, you keep twitching…" I muttered.

"Yeah, you were really still when you wanted to be when I met you." Gabriel pointed out.

She shrugged, winking at him and looking at the rest of the people who were sleeping. "Eh, I'm on torture withdrawal," she said as if it were nothing. "Wanna take bets on how much I want to see your blood? Taking bets now while I count the wounds I'll put in Cobalt to wake his lazy tail up."

My tail swiftly snagged her wrist. " **Nobody**. Is torturing **anybody**. In our journey." I proclaimed sternly. "You will have to learn to go without. Cold turkey, capiche? It's hard enough getting my sister out of you without you getting your torture fix."

She pouted. "One cut? It'll just be down the chest a little… It won't even bleed much."

"No." I crossed my arms. She huffed and stretched, showing off as much of her body as she could and making my boyfriend realize she had taken off her cloak again. One sweep of aura fire had the black cloth practically floating over and landing on her like a blanket. She caught it with one hand so as to not cut it on her horn, and obediently brushed her large bundles of fluff that made up her pseudo-wings behind her and into the cloak as she put it on and tied it together in the front.

"One thing I have always wondered…"

Gabriel and I leapt ten feet in the air, I think.

"How exactly your blades remain perfectly sharp no matter how many things you attack with them." Armalita finished. Holy hell, she moves quietly when she chooses. Here's hoping Cobalt doesn't gain ninja skills in his sleep.

"Dunno, Don't care," Raina grunted as she walked over to where I would cook breakfast and waited, brushing her cloak under her as she sat down to avoid getting dirt and stuff in her fur. After the dungeon grime story, I could understand her need for cleanliness.

"It's handy, whatever it is." Armalita drawled as she extracted a whetstone from one of the pockets on her… Well, they don't qualify as pants. More like sizable underwear that's part belt. Now that I was paying attention, I was seeing tiny vials hidden barely in the material of her minimal clothing, possibly for her to slip her own needles into. Armalita carried poison around to add to her needles for throwing?

I tactfully ignored that and watched Armalita start to use that whetstone on the bladed edges of her trident. It was a very methodical and mechanical process, which helped take my mind off of things to just watch.

Gabriel, for his part, seemed to be checking on Sandra and her pet, Crystal. He moved as carefully as he could, despite Sandra being atop a large beast. He got close to the face of the crystal beast, noting that the spotlights that were its eyes were not present, which seemed to mean they were closed. He slowly put his paws on it and rubbed them along its face and behind its ears.

After a few minutes of this, the eye-spotlights of Crystal flickered on as slits and widened to the eye shape, lifting its head slowly to observe Gabriel directly. It casually butted him on the chest with its nose and then proceeded to lay its head back down, watching all of us.

He walked back to me, clearly glad that the beast hadn't ignored his presence this time. I smiled at him, while Armalita finished sharpening her weapon. The warrior wolf taikan slid her trident in its place where it always lied on her back and went to wake Cobalt up personally. I directed Gabe to watch the show with me.

"We so need popcorn," Gabriel commented with a smirk.

We watched Cobalt slowly wake up as Armalita gently nudged him awake, mindful of his skittishness. The metal dog taikan blinked his eyes open slowly, focusing his eyes with some difficulty once he realized he wasn't just looking at the sky. I knew when he finally registered Armalita hovering over him because his eyes widened fully. "Ah! Armalita?"

"Good morning, Cobalt." she greeted him.

"I-I'm sorry, did I oversleep?" He asked shakily as he scrambled out of his sleeping bag "Sorry, sorry, I-"

Armalita covered his mouth with her hand. "You didn't oversleep." she reassured him. "Christy was simply going to be making breakfast soon, and if you weren't awake, I would worry that **somebody** would eat all of it."

She shot a glare at Gabriel that could only be identified as mildly playful if you knew her really, really well. Otherwise, it would seem just as stern as she always was. Gabriel fell for it, and I did only for a bit, because while she wasn't too different than when I left her, she was different enough for it to be harder for me to understand her.

Cobalt blinked. "Uh… Oh," he muttered confusedly. Armalita turned back to him.

"Cobalt, you look like you think I'm going to bite you," Armalita noted calmly.

"A-are you?"

"...No." Armalita shook her head. "I'm not. And most people wouldn't, Cobalt. You need to start keeping that in mind."

"Y-yes ma'am." he flinched. Jeez, was that kid ever going to get out of that fear state he was in around Armalita? He clearly was crushing on her, but she scared him at the same time. What a weird combination. Perhaps it was born of a false sense of worthlessness he has for himself that made him think someone as powerful and noble as Armalita was dozens of leagues above him.

"Here's a thought," Gabriel said once the cobaltum taikan calmed down enough to stand up properly. "Let's brainstorm ways to get Cobalt to feel more confident."

I elbowed him. "After you give us all the scoop on what you know about your compound's defenses." I reminded him.

While Gabriel had a sharp intake of breath as he remembered what his double said, Armalita looked at me strangely. "What has you so anxious to plan today?" she asked.

"An all-powerful dude with a white shadow," I replied. "We'll elaborate later."

"Yeah… But we can at least have breakfast first. So we know what we're talking about and not half asleep." Gabriel argued. This was probably a reasonable thing to say, so I agreed and my tails flared out to collect my pack and start taking my precious cooking supplies out of it.

Raina stood by me and watched as she passed the gold switch thing from hand to hand. Why she was so fascinated by it, I had no idea. "Do you like gold, Raina?" I asked as casually as I could while in the process of collecting ingredients from our packs.

"Nah." Raina set the switch spinning on her upturned claw yet again. "But this thing doesn't get cut by my claws, which kinda absorbs my attention, 'cause it's gold. You know I can cut through metals tougher than that. Why, Cobalt's a prime example."

"We never tried to break it. We thought it wouldn't be worth it because whatever purpose it had it couldn't fulfill while broken."

"Welp." Raina shrugged and continued playing with it. She sounded like she didn't care much. I sighed.

"Come on, Raina, give me a chance." I pleaded as I added sausages to the scrambled eggs.

"But your near-tears face is so funny when you beg." Raina walked away, leaving me to wilt a bit and continue cooking. Was it really, honestly too much to ask to have my sister back? Why didn't I ask Other Gabe about it?

Oh wait. I expected something along the lines of 'reconditioning is best done properly'. That was probably true, but it hurt. It hurt so bad. I wanted it to be over with quickly. Yet, I couldn't have that. Not if I wanted her to become better properly.

But then… Why wouldn't it be proper to speed it up like that? Was there some other reason that Raina couldn't just recover with the wave of Other Gabe's hand? Was it something like… Something about who she is, or is it about the difference between her now and her then?

Maybe… Maybe if she regained her innocence at the snap of fingers, it wouldn't last long. The full force of the memories she had of torturing people and enjoying it could break her like a twig. She might never recover from the guilt that way. The way we have it now, I couldn't have my sister back fully, but she could eventually get to the point where I at least **recognize** her. In other words, without wiping her memory, it wouldn't be possible for her to be the sweet little girl she had been before.

Other Gabe clearly did not like the idea of removing someone's memories. That begged the question: Was I justified in wanting to do just that to get my sister back?

I needed Gabriel to talk me through this… The thought of erasing much of Raina's memories was building, and I didn't know whether it was okay or not.

I finished making breakfast and distributed it, quickly making my way to Gabriel and sitting besides him. "Gabriel, I need to talk about something important." I murmured. He paused, a bite halfway to his mouth.

"Go for it." he replied quietly.

"I realize that your lookalike didn't fix Raina because the only way to properly do it would be to erase her memories… And he didn't want to do that, but once I thought of it…"

I trailed off, before remembering that I didn't have to worry about him interrupting me. He was waiting patiently. "I kept thinking about it. I'm conflicted now. I want to do it, really, because it can get my sister back, but it just sounds so wrong… What do you think?"

Gabriel let the silence hang in the air as he readjusted himself in his seated position. "Well… Look at Raina," he suggested. I did as I was told, taking her appearance in without comment, seeing her picking on Cobalt with Armalita defending him. Gabriel's words still reached my ears as he spoke. "She's a very complex person. She still paints, and not all of her paintings are bad things. She enjoys reading, even if those books are of the more… Well, you know. Her sadism comes from a different source, the brainwashing, but it's not like suggestion. She is a completely different person in that regard. It's difficult to even call it artificial anymore."

I looked at him, keeping my expression even, waiting for him to continue.

"So what would you classify her as? She makes her decisions, has things she likes and dislikes, and there are elements of your sister that are still there. She's a completely different person, but she's still a person. The reason why taking memories on that scale would be destructive is because that person in Raina's body is who she is now. Are you willing to destroy that for your own sake?"

I soaked his explanation in and shook my head. "...No…" I whispered. "And it would be Raina's six or seven-year-old mind in an eighteen-year-old body, and there would be a lot of other complications… And the world wouldn't forget what she's done either… No, you're right. I can't do that to someone. Erasing a few minutes isn't nearly as destructive as unraveling what makes this Raina… Raina."

He patted my shoulder gently as he turned back to his food and began eating again, clearly convinced the issue was solved. I closed my eyes for a moment instead of eating my own breakfast, not feeling too hungry.

That was until Gabriel's aura flames licked at my chin, and I opened my eyes to see a chunk of my breakfast floating in front of me, wrapped in the azure flames. "You really should be eating," he said. I obediently opened my mouth and let him put that bit of food in there before chewing it down. I quickly picked up my fork and started eating my own food with vigor, realizing that I was most certainly hungry even if I didn't feel like eating.

Ten minutes later, I was washing and drying the dishes with relative ease. I loved my fire and water magics, allowing me to rinse, wash, and sanitize the plates and bowls, as well as my frying pans. Meanwhile, Armalita and Gabriel redistributed the materials in our packs, making sure the food was easily accessible.

Cobalt looked like he was about to ask Armalita something, but Gabriel cleared his throat and waved us over. Armalita and Cobalt were quick to obey for different reasons, the former knowing what a serious look meant, and the latter perfectly willing to see what his friend was doing. I was already nearby, and Raina… Well, she was just playing with our switch in the background, unconcerned. She leaned against Crystal, who Sandra was napping atop, her dangerous tail swishing slowly in her sleep.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I closed my eyes, pulling memories up in my mind of the things my lookalike told me to do and my memories of the people we might come across. It was time for a good danger warning.

"Okay… So most of you don't know this, because we didn't mention it yet, Christy and I shared a dream last night courtesy of my lookalike." I said bluntly, watching Cobalt's eyes widen and Armalita's eyes narrow. "But most of that information's not what I'm about to talk about. My lookalike suggested that I give you guys information about some of the most dangerous people I know of in my compound, because we might have to face them. There are… Four people I know of that we need to be careful of, but I don't know any of them personally."

Now Raina had joined us, having apparently heard the words 'dangerous people' and decided it was a good idea to find out who she could get away with attacking.

"So let's start." I sat down, thereby communicating that the story might be long. Christy and Cobalt followed suit and I began.

"There are four seriously dangerous people I can think of," I said. "Their names are Moira, Wasp, Demon, and Valkyrie."

"Three of those names seem relatively self-explanatory," Armalita noted calmly.

"I think the one I know the least about is Moira. I haven't even **seen** her, but all the stories say the same thing." I looked directly at everyone. "She is a mermaid prokopian."

Armalita raised a brow. "Mermaids can command water," she noted, looking at Christy.

"I'll hold her off if we come across each other in battle." Christy nodded. "Anything else about mermaids I should know?"

Armalita frowned, before shaking her head. "I do not have extensive knowledge about them, only the basic ability they have. Christy does seem to be the best choice."

Cobalt grimaced. "Splitting up may be a bad idea, but all of these people sound scary. Should we really be packed together where all of these guys can attack us at once on their home turf?"

Armalita looked me squarely in the eyes. "It is Gabriel's home turf too." she pointed out.

I nodded. "I have a much better mental layout of my compound" I agreed "I should be able to get us there, even if it's a bit rusty after seven months."

"So a water controlling mermaid, and we don't know what kind of weapons they carry." Christy pointed out. "We'll need to be careful. We don't know if her human form has guns or melee weapons."

"Point." I agreed. "The next one, one I know little about but have at least seen fighting, is Wasp. I've heard stories about her. She is a prokopian who didn't like that her beast form was a rather weak, bee-like creature and signed up for experiments to fuse her beast form and regular form together."

Cobalt blinked. "What, like a taikan?"

"No." I shook my head. "Her body is mostly human, but instead of being able to shift, she has her antennae, her wings, and her body is extra light but stronger. She uses twin sharp cones as weapons, Huge white conical points on fancy handles. Like stingers. Very fast, and from what I've seen when I caught a glimpse of her on the battlefield, very deadly."

Christy frowned. "How did this 'Wasp' person not get sent out to war if she was so deadly?" she asked.

"That, I don't know," I replied quietly. "In fact, you could ask that question about all four of them, I think."

When nobody had a response to that, I continued. "Next up… Valkyrie. She… Well, we'll get to that… She is, wait for it… A valkyrie prokopian. Very dangerous. I see her more often than the others; I think she lives nearby where I used to. Training rooms of all types, she excels in. Her subspecies can fire the silver feathers of her wings…" I looked at Armalita. "The two of you share a lot of qualities. Valkyrie uses her projectiles and two short swords, while you use very similar projectiles and your special trident."

Armalita let this soak in quietly for a while. "Then she and I shall do battle if necessary." she proclaimed eventually, determinedly. "Now, you said you would get to something later?"

"Uh, yeah." I rubbed the back of my neck. "It's a bit weird. Valkyries are all female in appearance, don't ask me how I know that or how they reproduce, I don't know the answers to either, though Valkyrie might. Point is, nobody around her knows whether her human form is male or female, because she never shifts out of her beast form, possibly because her beast form is essentially better at… Everything than her human form could be."

Raina opened her mouth.

"I don't want to have a discussion on reproduction right now." Christy admonished her sister.

Raina rolled her eyes. "You lot are no fun."

"Thank you, Christy. Lastly…" My gaze darkened. "Demon. He too named himself after his subspecies."

Armalita tensed. "The beasts that live by Demon Mountain." she hissed. "The relatives of the dragons, the demons."

"Those demons." I agreed. "He is the one I know a lot about just because everyone says to stay away from him and exactly why."

"Well, don't keep us waiting, buddy-boy, go on." Raina gestured impatiently to me.

I sighed and nodded. "Okay. Demon was a kid who… Let's just say the people in charge took a different approach with him. Practically from the day he was born, He was raised to be perfectly obedient to the people at the top. A living weapon, and a very, very dangerous one at that."

"Pretty much not alive?" Raina asked.

"Alive… But robotic, essentially." I whispered. "There was only one person he listened to… And that was Boreas. There was something else about Demon accepting commands from anyone who could beat him in combat, but… Nobody could."

I shivered. "Demon is **terrifying**. I met him on the battlefield when he and I were maybe ten during training, probably just to test the guy's current limits…"

Christy shuddered. "How'd you do?" she asked.

"He squashed me," I said darkly. Everyone's eyes widened slightly save Raina. "I took a step and I was out for the count. He got from in front of me to behind me in an instant, his katana drawn and held to my neck. His katana, by the way, is permanently coated in cursed flames. It didn't feel good just to be near the fire. When we were set for a round two in our beast forms, he swatted me like a goddamn fly with his tail and paw and almost roasted me with a beam of cursed flames before he was called off by Boreas. I didn't hold a candle to him when I was ten, and I **definitely** can't now."

Christy had another question, and she sounded worried. "Where was he when you escaped?" she asked.

"Because he just obeys orders, he's not too flexible," I explained quickly. "His primary job was… Is… Defending the compound. He couldn't care less who was **leaving** it. Let me put it to you this way. If Demon had cared about what I was doing, I would be six feet under right now."

Christy shivered at my tone and my certainty, but it was Armalita who spoke up. "Do you know why that particular one is not at war?"

"Because he only listens to Boreas," I explained. "And none of the people who would take charge of him can best him in battle, so he wouldn't listen to them."

"He sounds like a guy I could make bleed without being supposed to feel bad." Raina proclaimed happily, brandishing her claws.

We all winced. "Don't get excited. We're planning this out so we never, ever cross paths with him." I said, turning to Armalita and Christy specifically. "We can't use the rooftops like we did to enter your compound, Armalita. With both Valkyrie and Demon able to fly, and quickly, we can't risk it. We need to… Get in there, do what we came to do, and…"

I trailed off. And what? Do what? There was a power vacuum in Taika but in Prokopios, there were people who could potentially take his spot. "And… Someone will have to take up that power vacuum so someone else doesn't... " my mind turned to the old man and the four robot-like guys with laptops. That old guy could potentially take Boreas' place.

"Someone who will work to end the war." Christy nodded. "Someone will have to make their way back to Taika to manage the power vacuum as well. Nobody was influential enough to take over so easily, and yet… It will not last forever. One we are done here, one of us must go and maintain order in Taika."

"Not quite." Armalita disagreed as I went to agree. We looked at her in confusion until she elaborated. "Christy, you recall me taking Cobalt and disappearing before we chased after Gabriel?"

Christy's eye twitched reflexively in response. "Yes… I remember you randomly dragging Cobalt off when Gabriel was already on his way," she said just a little frostily.

"Relax, please." Armalita retorted, unconcerned. "I explained it to you in part when I left. Gabriel had to be a sizable distance from the compound before we made contact with him. The other thing I was doing was labeling several people who wanted the war to end as soon as possible, and that's a lot of people. They won't be doing anything. I am aware that this sounds unfairly demeaning, but it was akin to putting a doll in the captain's chair."

I looked at Christy, and she looked at me. Then, we turned back to Armalita. "When exactly were we going to find out about this?" I asked.

"It didn't come up." Armalita defended herself calmly. "And not only would it not affect the result of a power vacuum, it literally would not affect our journey in any way. It was simply… Reassurance."

"You gotta tell us these things." Christy admonished the warrior, who had the decency to look a little bit mollified.

"Of course, Christy." she nodded solemnly. "On reflection, it was a careless lack of judgment, even if the chances of this change were low.

"I'm talking about communication between friends." Christy elaborated.

Armalita blinked. "...Yes. I failed that as well. I will not do it again." she promised, before turning to me. "Is there anything else about this 'Demon' person?"

"I don't think there's a thing that katana of his wouldn't cut… Kind of like Raina's claws here. Christy's tails might withstand it, but I don't know. I don't even know the appropriate way of escaping if he does appear, because he is incredibly fast and has no mercy. We can't just throw ourselves into the game like Christy and I were forced to do for your compound. We honestly have to sneak in. Otherwise, we're going to be torn apart."

Raina held up a hand, bringing attention to her. "So… This guy won't talk back to me, turns obedient if I beat him up a little, is also fast, and can shift forms into a rideable dragon thing?" she clarified with a smirk. "If he's a looker we might just be in business."

"Do **not** confront him, are we clear?" I asked.

"Crystal." Cobalt nodded rapidly.

Sandra's pet raised its head lazily to look in our direction before deciding beauty rest was more important, and it put its head back down.

Raina just smirked.

"Are we **clear**?" I asked in her direction, my tone harsh due to Christy visibly being affected by her implications. She turned her smirk on Christy, her eyes showing no remorse, only a sadistic light at the sight of her sister being emotionally compromised enough to think of things Christy usually wouldn't ever do.

"Clear as pea soup." Raina snarked before turning and walking away.

"Gabriel… Do you recall what his human form looks like?" Armalita asked, keeping her voice gentle after that exchange.

"Black hair, kind of a medium length, could cover his eyes if it wasn't styled…" I murmured, trying to recall. "His eyes are this unnerving acid green, just like his subspecies. His clothing was pretty much black and 's all I recall from the last time I saw him, but I don't know if he's changed in appearance in recent years, because when he's not following orders, he tends to keep to himself."

"Not even passing glimpses over the years?" Armalita pressed.

"Hardly." I shook my head. "Sorry. But as long as we stay out of places where Demon might be around, we should avoid him entirely."

"We'll integrate that into our plan." Armalita nodded. "But that's enough for now. We should start moving. We have to try and skirt between the Demon Mountain territory and the warzone. There is a healthy distance between the two because nobody wants to risk being hunted down by the… 'residents' of the blackened mountain."

"You've seen it?" I asked.

"A picture of it, taken in a memory lense." Armalita nodded.

"We should get moving, then," Christy said as she mobilized herself. I reached out with my aura flames and first pulled her into a hug.

"Please don't stress out too much… We just have to be patient with her." I murmured. "I know how much it hurts."

"I feel vulnerable in front of her," Christy whispered back. Every time I even look at her when she's smirking… It's like a stab to my heart…"

I gripped her shoulder comfortingly. "Let's start moving," I suggested. "And we'll think about this later, okay?"

"Road trip?" Sandra was awake and leaning against Crystal's neck and head, resting between its ears. Her tail waved back and forth slowly, but we were safe as long as she stayed atop Crystal. The fur around her mouth had some of her breakfast in it, but she was licking it away as we watched her.

"Is she just going to be in the background all the time unless it's time for her to suddenly barrel through something?" I asked, and despite her growing anxiousness and emotional instability, Christy gave her signature humming chuckle as she turned her attention to something else. "Come on, Sandra, can you get your beast moving?"

"Okaaaay." Sandra slurred, patting Crystal's neck. "Yip yip!" she giggled, hiccupping and reaching for the flask at her waist.

I turned away to check on the others as Crystal stood up immediately upon hearing those words (for some reason). Finally, we were on our way.

The environment was as beautiful as always. Gone were the wonderful mountains and uneven terrain dominated by green, and fading were the flatlands full of forest. Approaching was a thicker forest of intriguing plants of countless kinds. Flowers and bushes, various trees. We crossed biomes over the course of the day, looking around at all of the sights.

"Be on your guard." Armalita commanded eventually "It is now possible for the enemy to hide from us at closer range. If we must fight…"

"No," Christy interjected. "Fighting is a last resort. Gabriel and I have a lot of power to avoid and block attacks. We try to talk them down first."

Armalita accepted this easily. "My point regarding our guard rising still stands." she pointed out. She left it at that, unwilling to further push something she had already made quite clear. We spread out slightly as we walked, having to take an odd path so that Crystal could fit between the trees. If the forest got much thicker, we would have to skirt around this section, which could eat up some of the time we had gathered.

Under Armalita's instruction, we were set for any sneak attack. My eyes were closed and I maintained my aura vision, sensing everything from my own two paws to the small sources of aura among the trees, bugs or birds. The plants gave off an azure glow in my vision, making it seem to me like I was walking on a bed of light, but not necessarily obstructing my vision.

"Armalita, how well do you know troop movements?" I asked.

"Not extensively. I study every document I can get my hands on, but considering my status as a guard, elite or not, I am not the first to receive that information." Armalita answered immediately. "As far as this forest goes, I know very little. We are not at the boundary for the actual battlefronts, but Taikan patrols certainly come through here and are more vigilant than anyone who travels through the more sparse forest from before could be."

"So Gabriel should stay in his beast form?" Cobalt asked.

"I'll be doing that anyways." I reminded him. "Considering I'm our three-hundred-sixty-degree view watchman, which I have to be in this form for."

"Why shift forms in the first place then, huh?" Raina asked.

I waved my paws at her. "Do you see these paws shooting a bow"

"This from a man who uses powerful spheres of raw aura energy." Armalita chimed in.

"Those can be dangerous!" I defended myself. "The aura bolts of my bow just fling things around."

Raina rolled her eyes. "Sap."

I was about to retort with the word 'pacifist' when the image of Malvolio's glassy eye flashed across my mind and I clenched my eyes shut, trying to focus on my surroundings again. I could sense the sadist smirking at my failure to respond.

I wanted to be a pacifist, I still did, but that wasn't an option anymore… Right? I didn't get to be a pacifist anymore… I shouldn't be. I was a murderer. I failed to do what I needed to do to get Christy out of there.

" _Hold it, buddy boy,"_ I thought to myself. " _There were a_ _ **ton**_ _of unknowns in that compound. Complete success would have been down to luck, not preparation or skill"_

I mentally nodded to myself. That much was true, I had to admit. Still… I shouldn't have had to kill him.

The alternative, though was either me being dead or us having escaped without Raina.

I looked to the unique taikan, who seemed to be spacing out, bored, as she walked. Her bare feet seemed not to matter to her in any capacity despite walking on rocks and sticks. Ninety-nine percent of me said that rescuing her was the right choice from the start, no matter what position she was in. Part of me, a traitorous part, whispered to me that if we hadn't gone and saved her, I wouldn't have had to kill Malvolio in the end.

Her presence was tearing into Christy and I so much that I couldn't trust myself to be entirely level-headed all the time. The doubt ate at me as I watched her verbally torment Cobalt or Christy, something she would do with her claws if she weren't hopelessly outnumbered. The knowledge that right now she wouldn't hesitate to make her sister bleed if she wanted didn't sit well with me.

This travel went on for a while until we reached a clearing. The sun was beginning to set, and we were still surrounded by tall trees. I looked up into the thick branches. "So… This is where we camp, right?" I asked. "Who wants to join me in finding out how close we are?"

Christy's ears twitched. "Tree climbing? Fun."

"We'll start setting up sleeping areas, then." Armalita nodded, although neither Sandra nor Raina seemed to be ready to help at all.

Christy used her tails to curl around the branches and lift her up one at a time while I took the route that involved actual exercise. The trees were strange, having both pine needles and some non-evergreen leaves as well. We clambered through the mess of branches to reach the top and see over the forest.

"...Oh…" Christy murmured.

The mist that had dominated the distance was beginning to clear now, and now that we could see more into the horizon, the silhouette that greeted us gave us chills. Through the odd fog that still covered the view of the upcoming mountain, we could see it in shadow. The pitch black image in the distance rose up like a monster. It was large, wide, and its tip was broken into shards and spikes that left a gap in between, like some sort of huge deadly weapon planted in the ground. Some of those shards extended out from the mountain's surface like the blades of razor wire, as if entire chunks of the mountain had been lost and we were looking at the remains. I wondered how much more chilling it would look in person, when we got through that odd fog.

"Can you tell how far away it is?" I asked.

"Not really… Maybe a couple day's travel, but we won't be going that far. Another day in this direction at the minimum, maybe less. Then we have to start skirting carefully around the territory."

We clambered down, expressions grim. "That is one scary mountain," I announced once my paws touched the dirt.

Raina raised a brow. "Gonna have to see this for myself," she said.

"I can help you up, Raina." Christy offered immediately, but Raina pointedly ignored her and started clambering up. She moved smoothly through the trees, getting not the slightest amount of sap on her like the kind I was currently shifting to get out of my fur. As I worked on the unwelcome sap, Christy looked around at everyone clearing away twigs and stones and moved to help.

As her tails swept the area clean, unveiling a nice clearing of grass, I was looking around. "Christy, Can you make your woven bed with just one tail?"

"It'll take time, but I could do it." Christy nodded. "Does everyone want comfortable bed tonight?"

"Let's go with yes." Raina dropped out of the tree next to her sister. "I prefer squishy mattresses, but some fluff will have to do."

Christy smiled at her sister, as she stood close to her. "I'm glad I can be of some help to you," she said. I saw the movement, and made to stop her with my aura flames on instinct, but the azure fire passed through Raina like nothing was there, and Raina's claws flashed, striking Christy in the muzzle.

"Come on, don't say you didn't see that coming." Raina mocked her. "Personal space, you know? Besides, you shouldn't ever get close to someone who loves the sight of blood."

Christy had almost toppled to the ground before I caught her in my arms. She wasn't badly hurt… Just some scratches across her face that would heal overnight. But she was bleeding slightly. "Raina…" she murmured, and I gently set her on her feet. Then, I turned to Raina, angry.

"She's trying to be nice!" I exclaimed.

"Makes it all the better." Raina retorted easily. "And she'll do it again, and again, and again. That's who she is, and you know it. Who am I not to take advantage of such a weak position? It's so **easy**. And she'll keep throwing herself at me in the hopes that she can 'fix' me. Frankly, I feel as intact as I want to be."

I opened my mouth, but Raina swatted me with a backhand, not knocking me down but spinning me around a bit. There was pain in my muzzle, where her claws had nicked me. I stood straight and turned around.

" **Don't**. Hurt your sister again." I threatened, Christy's safety the one thing on my mind now. " **Never** , are we clear?"

"Clear as toxic sludge," Raina smirked and punched me in the face, or tried to. I caught her fist with my paw, grunting as her strength somehow nearly overcame mine. Where had she developed all of this strength and speed? Was it just… A compensation for the lack of magic? Her muscles didn't show nearly enough to make it seem like she would be that fast. In fact, she had a lot of… Fat reserves in most places other than her belly. Or did her speed just outmatch my strength in a way?

I earned a nick on the ear for my troubles and she walked off as I mentally counted to fifteen and turned to check on Christy, who looked more emotionally compromised than ever. I gestured for her to sit down, and sat down with her in the grass.

"Gabriel… You're hurt." she murmured.

"Eh, I'm fine. Your cuts are deeper than mine." I told her quickly. "But they're not too serious. She intentionally avoided your eyes."

"I don't know what to do… I don't know what to do…"

"Hey." I gripped her shoulder, breaking her free from the trance she almost fell into. "It could take us years, but we have to do this. Maybe it won't even work, I don't know, but we don't get to give up. We have to keep trying." I said.

Christy shuddered and pulled me closer for comfort, and I, in turn, pulled her closer to comfort her. "Hey..." I whispered. "Did Raina used to have any… Weaknesses, Christy?"

Christy looked at me, confused for a moment, but closed her eyes in thought moments later. "She… When we were young, There was one thing... But… It's been so many years. And she's completely different, and…"

"That doesn't matter." I grinned. "You should go for it."

Christy absorbed this while I looked around. Raina had gone to hang out by herself again, and hadn't seemed to hear us. She slowly smiled. Then, maybe something triggered in her at the memory of doing something to her little sister to submission when she was young, because that smile turned into something almost… Sinister.

"Christy, why are you being scary?" I asked shaking her. She blinked and looked at me, her smile returning to normal.

"Sorry, sorry. It's impossible not to be like that when that comes up."

"You looked evil."

"You know… I think I should get some evil out of my system." Christy's tails twitched at the prospect of what she was going to do.

"Could you cook us dinner first?" I half asked, half pleaded. "And it'll be easier to catch her if she's… sleeping in a bed made of your tails."

Christy's eyes lit up.

"One bed for me and you, one for Cobalt and one for Armalita 'cause they're not that far yet, and Sandra's just gonna stay on Crystal, and your tail shouldn't be touching her own tail anyways. That leaves you three free tails when you create the bedding for Raina's…"

Christy was convinced, and I was grinning like a madman. We'd probably **all** regret this when the episode ended. Worth it. It was **so** going to be worth it.

As Christy began cooking, keeping the food she prepared as simple as possible this time, I walked over and sat near Cobalt and Armalita. I blinked. "Armalita, how'd you get the switch thing?" I asked her.

"My sister had it in her grasp." the wolf taikan gestured up to the feline on top of the crystal beast. "While I fail to understand at what point she managed to separate it from the Prosecutor-"

I coughed. "It might help Christy if you called her 'Raina' instead.

Armalita visibly tried not to flinch. "Of course. My apologies. As I was saying, I do not know how she separated the object from Raina or when she did so. Speaking of this object, can you explain more about its significance?"

"Not in any way that helps you understand what it's for," I admitted. "We don't know what it does, we don't know what it's for, we only know that we're supposed to take it with us when we go places because it was given as a gift to Christy with a message to take it along with us. Other than that… It's just been extra weight."

Armalita frowned. "That truly is all the information you have?" she asked, seeming disappointed.

"Well… Raina couldn't damage it." I ventured "But I don't see how that helps…"

"It does," Armalita stated. "It means one of two things. Either the object is a metal like gold with a similar weight, but is not gold—I would not know what metal that could possibly be—and the other option is that the item has magical origins."

I blinked. "Oh," I said kind of pitifully, before noticing Cobalt's impressed expression, which made me smile. "So if it's magic, what kind of magic is it?"

"I can't tell you that, I don't have the information." Armalita deadpanned. "Now why are you smiling so broadly?"

I looked at Cobalt. "Armalita's got a point, you know. You should try to be more assertive." I told him. "And you have every right to be more confident, too. Don't let Raina get you down."

While I walked away, my aura senses told me that Armalita was giving Cobalt a look and Cobalt was waving his hands around and my ears told me he was trying to change the topic. I chuckled as I approached Christy's food prep area.

The kitsune was just about finishing the simple meal, cooked using her tail flames. "Dinner," she called as I walked up to her. My pace quickened for those last few steps in excitement, only to be met by one of her tails. "Be patient" she chided me while the others approached.

"Why?" I whined childishly.

"Because you'll eat too much." she told me with a smirk, pushing me back.

"Will not!"

"Will too, dog boy. Now wait for everyone else." she playfully pushed me away while the others approached. Armalita handed me Christy's gold object, which I slowly put onto my belt while doing my best to maintain a sad pout and failing.

"Dude. You need pouting practice." Raina brushed against me as she passed, nicking my side with her claws along the way for no obvious reason. I winced and placed my paw against the shallow cuts to stem any bleeding and noted with satisfaction that nobody had dawdled in making their way to Christy's cooking area.

Christy served our dinner and we all eagerly ate it up, Raina included. Like always, I kept a careful eye on Raina, trying to understand her as much as possible. As usual, she was actually very clean in how she ate, keeping as much stuff out of her fur as possible. She was sitting in the grass, ignoring what Christy had woven for her with one of her tails, which was essentially a block of her tail. Her cloak was pulled under her to prevent her getting any grass stuck in her fur.

Because of this need for cleanliness, she was the last one to finish eating. She proceeded to sneak her hand into her pack and drag out what appeared to be a miniature paint kit. Her two painting colors, red and black, were embedded in sealable cylindrical containers that were numerous enough to have normally contained many more colors, but these ones held alternating black and red. The two columns of these pockets of paint were a part of what looked like a rectangular board, the rest of which had places to hold the board, and the rest was embedded in a smaller rectangle that looked like paper. There was an almost finished painting. I could only tell that because I was to her right a fair distance. I couldn't tell what it was, but Raina pulled a small brush out of a part of it where it seemed to have been snapped in.

She laid it down flat in her lap and opened two of the plastic lids, one of a rectangle about two inches by four inches with dirty water in it, used for cleaning a brush in a way. The other was one of the red paint cylinders. She began to paint, and I looked away. I didn't want to disturb her while she did something so… Alive.

Everyone else avoided disturbing the girl as we sat back and, I'm assuming everyone was doing as I was, thinking about what we were doing.

In general, I mean. I didn't know what really was best in this case, but I wanted to find a balance between enjoying the trip and working to… Do our job. I bit my lip; I didn't like thinking of it, but if it was necessary.

I needed to have a conversation with my lookalike. I wouldn't ask him to make the war end himself, but maybe I could ask him if there was something, **anything** I could do so that I could end the war without killing him. Or maybe he'd want me to figure it out myself.

No, he could be a prat sometimes and he obviously took some degree of pleasure in the power he used to do his matchmaking shenanigans… But he was a friend and he didn't keep things from me unless it would depreciate me in some way. When I was young, if I had known he had been an immortal, all powerful being, I probably wouldn't treat him like the friend I do now. He protected himself by hiding the aspects of himself that would bring worship or unnecessary respect his way. Instead, he played the part of a normal person who happened not to age, the part of a particularly real imaginary friend.

And I was okay with that.

Christy started washing the dishes, and because she wasn't cooking, she let me help her this time. Working alongside her brought its sense of warmth as I imagined a while back when we did something similar in our home together, in Christy's cave.

It came time for bed, and Christy used one of her tails for each person, making them longer and longer and weaving them into honest-to-goodness bedding, a large bed for me and her… One for Raina. Christy still had two tails left unaltered, which shouldn't raise suspicion just yet because she did that last night and only used them to increase the range of her hug.

Then, finally, we all got into bed. I closed my eyes and kept my aura senses trained on Raina. It wouldn't necessarily look much different when she was sleeping, but I could hope that she wouldn't move much. Granted, she didn't do much twitching normally. When she was standing around normally, she doesn't move her fingers around, doesn't shift around in any way when standing still. Her movements, in general, were very smooth and seamless, no twitching, nothing.

So I had to analyze how quickly her chest was moving to determine whether she was asleep or not. Granted, that required keeping an eye on her chest, but Christy would understand. This was going to be worth it. Besides, I was no pervert. Well, not a pervert when it was someone other than Christy. I was willing to be honest, I got a **lot** of mental images despite my best efforts to ignore them when Raina teased me about Christy.

So Christy got to test her sister's weakness, and I got a little bit of revenge.

Raina fell asleep at a normal pace as the stars came out alongside the moon, which rose in the east. I tapped Christy's waist with my paw surreptitiously, and she started acting. She slipped out of bed absolutely silently, a glint in her eye. It was honestly a bit scary. What was she going to do to her sister? I knew it wouldn't physically harm her, but…

As Christy glided across the grass, I stood up as quietly as I could as well. I sensed with my aura vision (because the moonlight didn't show **everything** ).

Suddenly, parts of the tail bed that Raina was in moved, suddenly lashing Raina's limbs in place and tying her down at the belly as well. She woke up instantly, her claws striking at Christy's tails but being ineffective against six complementary tails worth of strength magic and the corresponding passive resistance.

As Christy practically glided up to the foot of her bed, Raina smirked at her. "Oh, you naughty, perverted girl, Christy." she teased, flexing her claws.

"Just wanted to have a little… **Chat**." Christy said, smirking herself.

"Amateur. Your bondage techniques are weak. If this were regular rope, I wouldn't even have to use my claws to escape." Raina informed her sister blandly.

"But they are my tails, so I can use them any way I want." Christy brought her two free tails up besides her, pointing them at Raina. Her smirk turned sinister. Whatever thought was corrupting her, I was anticipating the big reveal of Raina's weakness.

"And how are you going to use them? You look like you snapped. I must say, sadism really suits you." Raina offered.

" _No, no it doesn't"_ I mentally disagreed. Raina was kind of screwed up in the head. Take her words with a grain of salt.

"Do you know what I'm doing this for?" Christy asked. At this point, I noticed that Armalita had woken up.

"I'm sure you'll tell me."

"Remember the old days, when we were little kids?" Christy asked.

"Yyyep."

Her tails shifted and wiggled around in the air. "And perhaps… You remember what I always would do if we argued?"

Raina's entire demeanor changed in a single instant. Gone was the smirk, the almost droopy eyes, the stillness. She shuddered, her eyes widening significantly, and her mouth drew in a flat line. I was amazed. Some memory had definitely surfaced, and it wasn't treating the girl well.

"I see you do remember." Christy's sinister smirk turned into an evil grin. Raina's eyes went as wide as they possibly could and her expression turned to one of horror, the girl straining against Christy's tails.

"It's time." Christy laughed, wiggling her fingers and moving the two free tails forward "For a visit from the **tickle monster**!"

* * *

 **So... That happened.**

 **Nothing to say. Reviews would be appreciated as always. Thank you all for reading and have a nice day. I need to hit the hay...**


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Well.**

 **So... I was gonna stop at fourteen thousand words or something. Then it turned to fifteen, then I kinda stopped counting until I resolved the current issue. Then it became 18k. Happiness? Happiness.**

 **I was totally going to upload this and accidentally forget these A/Ns and reviews and stuff, but I managed not to be dense.**

 **Jango: (Pushes me away) Time for reviews!**

 **Me: Jango, let's be relaxed about this...**

 **Jango: I don't do relaxed, man.**

 **Me: Yes you do, just yesterday-**

 **Jango: Spoilers~**

 **Me: Ugh... Anyways, I'll start with West. Your rundown of what brainwashing does to someone was depressing, but sounded very accurate. After all, if that wasn't how the victim considered it, it wouldn't have worked. Now, because Prokopians and Taikans are not humans, I wager it's fair to say they experience things slightly differently, as the possibility of humans and these two species having the exact same brain chemistry is null, but it's a close comparison. Raina's head is one I'm reluctant to dive too deeply in, just because emphasizing with characters is the easiest way to write them, putting yourself in their shoes. I don't honestly believe it's overly necessary to give a play by play of her emotions to facilitate your understanding of her slow recovery.**

 **Jango: What Lies Beyond, long time no see! Man, even if you've been absent you've been missing the play by play. Tell me, did Frost get the type changing thing I slipped in her dinner last week? I went for poison type, y'know, cuz it leaves a bad taste in your mouth for AGES!**

 **Me: (Facepalms)**

 **Jango: Whatever! Anyways, I wasn't paying attention. Hyper, did they explain what they were in New Age first?**

 **Me: You were paying attention.**

 **Jango: You're getting less and less fun every day.**

 **Me: Hush. I don't feel like going back and checking at the moment, but either way, I'm glad it was surprising and interesting.**

 **Jango: Aewynessa time! I-**

 **Me: Amber, I need you.**

 **Amber: (Pops up right away) Hyper? What... Oh.**

 **Jango: Wait, i wanna help with this one!**

 **Me: Amber, please lead Jango away...**

 **Amber: Okay... Come on, Jango. (Drags him away)**

 **Me: (Sighs with relief) Anyways, Aewyessa, great to see you. Yes, Raina is weak to tickling. What do you expect from someone with her body structure?**

 **Truth be told, I hadn't thought of Crystal in such a direct archetypal setup, but you got the gist of it, and your explanation made sense to me. Points.**

 **ArataTheLegend. No, they are not the same person. They have the same human-like form, the same name, but everything aside is entirely different. A person is created by their experiences, after all. As for your second question, it's not quite... CLASSIFIED, but I still shouldn't answer it. Even though it's a simple and uncomplicated answer, who would you rather have tell you, me, or the Guardian of Aura? As for the third question, no, actually. This story is an original story with a couple pokemon elements in it to justify putting it on , so that I can provide the story to people who already read my other works and more, and in return I get feedback. When I decide to publish this outside of , this story is structured in such a way that I can change Gabriel's species, Raina's species, and a couple more elements and leave the rest alone, and I've got a complete, peer-reviewed story that I can publish properly. In this story, he's a lucario prokopian because lucario is a species of pokemon that I like, and conveniently is bipedal so he can be passed off as a unique taikan during the story, and also conveniently uses a power that his lookalike is based on. I said no earlier, but I guess the real answer is almost no.**

 **Alright, anonymous person. For one, "'s" can be passed off as "is" in dialogue. Dialogue is meant to be consistently slightly different from the rules of normal writing. That's because when a character speaks, they might speak with an accent, or otherwise differently. It's why grammar failures can be forgiven in dialogue because it leads a reader to believe that the character themselves would have said that using improper grammar. As for the tickling, I'm happy that it was such an immediate thought when you heard 'weakness'.**

 **Sorry to nitpick, AveragePichu, but it's Raina's weakness that is the tickle monster. I guess tickling is a common weakness when a character is otherwise seemingly seamless in how they act.**

 **Oh man, AP, this might take years in the future, because of how long it'll take, but that next paragraph's going to seem just a little more special. I'm not going to ship Caleb and Amber just because of that coincidence though.**

 **Hey, Eric. Glad to see you here. I think you can turn your first paragraph there into a description for a oneshot. Not sure who you mean by who my character Demon resembles, but since I won't know him, I won't ask. the GoA's role... Now, it's up to you to decide whether this is one of my things that's overly simplified of if it's one of my things that I overcomplicate. And I'll let you see how it plays out in the future.**

 **You don't think you can like this story any more than you already do, Eric? Hah! I hope the next 18k words serve to surprise you.**

 **No, unAnonymous, the fact that there are four 'elites' to worry about in the prokopian compound is not a reference to pokemon. The taikans had elites too, including Armalita. Gabriel knows more about his compound because he really grew up there, instead of escaping at age six.**

 **And Zlaxe, my friend. Your notebook was nicked? Um... I told Amber to take him out of here, so I don't think I'll ask him. I'll interrogate him later, I guess. Anyways, I'm not entirely sure what a 'tail apparel' is, but my hypothesis, influenced by your comments on her majesty... Anyhow, I agree that she's great. I was really proud when I made her design, even if I took inspiration from an umbreon, hense the shape of the ears and tail. The mountain-like spikes and other things though, that's all me. Everything else.**

 **While the review is slightly disjointed, I understand it, so there's no need to worry. And we'll test your demon theory soon... Very soon.**

 **Hope you're there to see it! Happy reading!**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirteen: The Blackened Mountain**

"I feel like I should be more… I dunno." I admitted, sitting back.

We were having breakfast, under the cover of some trees. We sat in a circle around the cooking pot, which Christy was absently stirring with one of her tails while she ate. "Sympathetic?" she asked me.

"No, she earned it."

"Weirded out?"

"Close, but I don't think so."

"Scared?"

"I'm not ticklish."

"...Really?"

"I'm not."

"You're full of it."

"Yep. But I don't think I'm scared."

"...Dull?"

"You sly fox…" I shook my head "Cognitive or emotionally?"

She laughed at me. "Both!"

"Former yes, latter no."

"This coming from the young man who can use the word 'cognitive'?" Armalita asked quietly after sipping the hot drink in her hand.

"That doesn't answer my question though, silly jackal." Christy shot at me with a smile.

I sat back, my own soft smile marking my expression as I thought. "Probably… surprised."

"Why, what's up?"

"You looked kinda devilish when you were about to get her." I gestured at Raina. The unique taikan was still under the effects of the brutal tickling she had received, her cloak wrapped around her like a blanket where she sat, not attempting to move away from the others and being a part of the circle. Our gold switch sat in front of her, between her and the cooking pot. She was shivering slightly, a glazed look in her eyes as she ate silently. "Kinda like you had a kink for tickling torture."

"I do not!"

"You enjoyed it." Armalita accused in the same tone as when she called me out.

"Like, a lot." I brought my paws up in case I got some revenge tickling. It definitely wasn't gonna save me, but hey, if I could try…

Christy sat back. "It's childhood memories. All good ones, no bad ones," she explained. "When she was young and innocent and I did that… Cuteness overload. And it always resolved any issues we had, because even though I kind of won, I didn't win the argument itself and neither of us were really gonna push it after that. I guess I overdid it this time. I don't know what she'll be like when she recovers, but I know…"

I lost my humored expression as she winced. "I know there will only be minor improvements…" she murmured.

"Hey, hey hey…" I touched her shoulder with my paw. "You know that some improvement's better than nothing, right?"

"I know… I know…" she leaned against me. "I just… It's so hard not to feel helpless."

"But you're not." I put my arm around her shoulder and squeezed her slightly. "You're not."

Christy nodded, and wrapped two tails around the pot, lifting it up and bringing it towards her sister, lifting the ladle with a third tail. "Would you like some more, Raina?"

"...Sure." the girl replied somewhat weakly, holding out the bowl. Christy served her and replaced the pot on the flame without a word for a while. I watched carefully as she tried to meet Raina's eyes because the girl was looking down at her food.

"Can you talk to me?" Christy asked.

"I don't really want to."

"Why not?" the kitsune looked confused.

Raina didn't answer, instead taking a spoonful of her hot meal silently.

"Come on, Raina." Christy pressed. "I know everything's different now, but why does that mean we have to be? We'll pull through one way or another, and I know, I **know** you don't think you have a chance, but-"

"You think I feel hopeless?" Raina asked, looking at her with a tired glare. "You're wrong."

"I am?" one of Christy's tails rose up nearby when she said this. "...If you allowed me to look, to understand your pain. I promise you, Raina, that I won't change anything. I won't force you to forget, or to change… I just want to see… So I can understand you even better than I did."

"You read the files." Raina deflected the question, her older self pushing back a bit to regain command. Only the jittery feeling of being incessantly tickled for an hour by her sister held that back, and it would fade soon enough.

Christy's eyes were sad. "Don't you trust me?"

Raina looked my girlfriend right in the eyes. "No."

"Leave it, Christy." I put my paw on her knee. "She might think any change in herself is artificial later down the line if you do anything now."

"She'll be paranoid." Armalita agreed, finishing her meal. "What did you see the last time you looked at the mountain?"

"It was still covered in a lot of mist from our view," Christy replied, hesitantly welcoming the change of topic. "But I think it's still pretty far away."

I noted out of the corner of my eye how Raina relaxed once her sister's gaze was off of her. She always had appeared relaxed since I'd known her, but there was something different about the sadist's 'relaxed' stance when she was, uh, doing her job, but for a single, inexplicable second she looked… Relaxed. Actually relaxed.

Armalita glanced at Cobalt, likely to make sure he was still there because he'd been completely silent, before looking at Christy. "To be honest, I question the morals in tickling your sister until she nearly went catatonic," she spoke sternly. She looked at Raina, and back to Christy. "It's true that it might leave her to be more open and more honest, but I can only wonder how scared of you she must be."

Christy took this in and looked at her sister. I wondered if Armalita was right. It must have been good fun back when they were children, but it seemed to have a different impact now. It would definitely work, but it was **really** bordering the line between casual and immoral reconditioning. It was sketchy, actually. Not something I would expect from Christy.

And in my mind, I immediately found my conclusion: She had been desperate to find something that she and her sister really shared, and she found it. And it had probably been just like Christy remembered. Raina was probably acting just similarly enough for Christy to believe it, but… Maybe not. I couldn't just tell her she was in the wrong. Raina wouldn't make any sort of recovery if we couldn't break her shell. I just had to ask myself whether there was a better option. And so far… I hadn't seen one. I know I'm not a genius, but…

Christy sighed in response to Armalita's question. "I can't know. She guards herself too much to know if I scared her," she replied. "But that's all I've got. The only thing that we once had together that we still have. Her painting is just the same as it was, but it's not been therapeutic at all. And it's her thing, her project. Her gift. Her power."

I turned my head at a shifting noise. Raina was glaring at her sister. An actual glare, not her usual looks. "It's not a **gift**. It's an **obsession**." she declared.

Christy brought her gaze to her sister, and Armalita just gave her a short glance. "That is your former reconditioning talking," Armalita said.

Christy kept looking at her sister's red eyes until the unique taikan was forced to look away. "I don't think so, Armalita," she said, catching all of us, Raina included, by surprise. "I think… It's her rationalization."

"What?" Raina was actually unnerved now. I was staring with awe. Boy, did she get unhinged after a damn good tickling.

"You spent eleven years torturing people because they made you enjoy it." Christy raised one hand palm up in front of her. "And on the side…" she raised the other hand in the same manner. "We have you in front of your favorite easel… And you're painting like you love to do, and you can't figure out why you still enjoy it. You think, for example, that you've been turned into a sadistic creature, and that you're fine with it. But then you think: 'Why do I still love to paint?' and you can't answer it."

"Shut it."

"And you can't stop painting. It gives you the sense of peace you always needed. And all the things they poured into your head… Every last ounce of it tells you that you don't need to paint to torture people, to get information out of them or whatever. You keep telling yourself it's not useful, but… I get the feeling that's the only reason there's a bit of my sister left in there."

Raina fell silent, her glare failing and devolving into a flat expression.

"I know, believe me, I know that you're different from when we were young. And yes, we all know I'm trying to change that, But you're **alive** , like… Mentally, because of it. Because you remember. It's why you tortured hundreds of people for eleven years, but not one of them died."

Raina shook her head. "I left them alive so I could get at them later. In my free time." she shot at Christy.

Christy just shook her head. "No, Raina. If it was all about filling your free time, you would have just wasted someone once you were done with them and grabbed someone else. And you slash people up, cut their flesh open like butter, Raina. And not **one** death? You took every effort not to let any of them die, even as you…" she coughed "Enjoyed their suffering in the process."

"Stop talking to me," Raina ordered, pulling the cloak on tighter around herself.

Christy obeyed. " _How long do you think this will take?"_ she thought at me, one of her tails touching the back of my head discreetly.

I met her eyes. " _A long time, Christy. You made a big impact here, but… That's the big thing you just dropped on her. You're starting with a leap and walking the rest of the way. You're telling her things that she knew but refused to acknowledge. And in her weaker state, she's more vulnerable to those things. I don't think it's a question of morals anymore. We can preserve her life by doing it the hard way, but we can't magically talk her out of her reconditioning without some help."_

She nodded to me. " _...Thank you, Gabriel. I think I needed that… Some reassurance that I didn't do the wrong thing."_

" _I support you."_ was all that I replied with. "Alright, let's get this cleaned up and then we'll be off again. We should cover lots of ground today, even if we got less sleep because of the nightly… Session."

"Sure, let's go with **that** bloody summary." Raina scoffed as she stood up, tossing her bowl at Christy, who caught it with her tail and started washing it using a different tail. "Hey, Buddy-boy. Noticed you couldn't watch it all go down."

"He has an aversion to indecency, which you practically exude." Armalita pointed out what Raina definitely already knew, defending me anyways. "He didn't **need** to watch you flailing around, so he didn't. I'm actually quite impressed with his restraint."

"No comment." I looked at both Armalita and Raina crossly, crossing my arms.

"...We should get moving, before we depress ourselves more…" Christy stood up. She turned and moved and extended one of her tails towards Sandra carefully, as the feline lay down on top of Crystal, our new behemoth crystal pet. Sandra's tail flicked around, and Christy whipped her own away from it, waiting until it swished back to snatch the used bowl from her and bring it back to Christy, who took it and began washing it too.

"Use the mist," Armalita suggested, and Christy's eyes lit up as all of her tails glowed and the water obscuring everything around us started condensing towards Christy, forming bubbles of water that she started using to clean the bowls more easily.

"Thank you, **Armalita**!" Christy exclaimed. "I should really start using my head…"

"Why did you use your head when you were trying to kill me?" I complained.

"Shh." Christy smiled. "You're just so thought provoking."

"Is that your way of flirting?" I asked.

"Calm down, Gabriel." Christy started packing things away, her abilities having made cleanup extraordinarily easy. She pulled the clean water she'd made from the mist into everyone's water containers so that they could stay hydrated fine.

"You really should play with mist more often," I commented as we started moving, while Armalita beckoned Crystal forward. Yes, we named the crystal beast Crystal. Deal with it.

"It helps, doesn't it. Makes it harder to see though." Christy commented. She wrapped one of her tails around my waist as she said this, maybe subconsciously.

We walked for a long time this time. Occasionally clambering up a tree and announcing that the mountain didn't look very much closer, that it was still a black blob of relatively the same size in the mist, growing closer. "We should have made more progress. We're walking fast enough." Armalita commented in a bout of confusion, looking behind her. "Is the mountain larger than I believed, and further?"

"Maybe." I crossed my arms as I walked. "It's a bit odd, though. It didn't look all that huge."

"This mist isn't helping." Armalita declared. "When we stop again in an hour or so, Christy, I need you to clear the mist."

"I should be able to do that… Well, if I don't run out of range." Christy replied, looking a little tense.

"Your tails mark the range," Armalita said. "So extend them forward to increase your range. Point them at the mountain and keep elongating them and pushing the mist aside until we can see past it. If the mist is **that** bad…"

"We'd be in trouble…" Cobalt murmured.

Silence reigned for that hour, and my aura senses didn't give me any information about anything approaching. "We've been totally alone for a while," I whispered.

"I imagine so," Christy said, looking towards me. She paused, and the rest of us did too. "Gabriel, what's wrong?"

"You didn't understand." I looked behind us and all around, those things hanging down from my head vibrating as I stretched my aura senses out. "Even without prokopians and taikans, there should be wildlife, but the last time I checked, there's nothing. No birds, no reptiles, no bears or wolves, not that we came across those anyways…"

Armalita drew a sharp breath. "Something chased the wildlife off. Something more dangerous than us."

"Guys?" Cobalt looked ahead. "The mist isn't as thick anymore…"

"Everyone, remain on guard," Armalita ordered as she suddenly took her trident in her hand and rushed forward. Not wanting her to vanish into the mist, we ran after her. Cobalt was right. The mist was going away, and quick.

Didn't stop us from skidding to a halt once it vanished.

"It's huge!" Cobalt barked.

"How did we get so close!?" Christy shouted.

Raina grinned.

"This is not good… This is extremely very not good…" I muttered.

The mountain loomed before us. Almost literally. The words 'holy shit' started looping through my head over and over and over. Man, we epically fail. We should have cleared this mist immediately, even if some prokopians or taikans noticed us because we weren't obscured.

"Are all those little black dots…" Cobalt whispered.

"Demons," Armalita answered darkly. "All of them."

The mountain was pitch black. It rose into the sky like a spear point, but chunks of it seemed elevated massively and cut, appearing like blades angled towards the tip of the mountain. And around it, like flies, black specks spun in circles around them and outward into the area. The mountain itself was so blackened by whatever that it looked like the entire thing was made of obsidian or something. An obsidian spear with extended spikes pointed towards the peak, one upwards of the mountain compared to the other. That's what it looked like, and it looked terrifying.

"How big are those demons?" I asked.

"Big…" Armalita answered shortly. "Look down."

We obeyed, even Raina. We were standing on a line of scorched earth, fifteen feet wide, and blackened utterly. The black dust under our feet didn't hurt, it was too fine. Just scorched earth. It even felt warm, now that I was paying attention.

"W-what is this?" Cobalt asked, looking back and forth. We were smack dab in the middle of a ten meter long, fifteen-foot wide clearing of just… Ash, amongst the trees. The treeline was blackened too, with some burnt branches nearby.

"We've wandered right into the demons' hunting grounds." Armalita sounded tense, looking back and forth. "These must be the remains when they attack their prey."

"But if they leave one of these whenever they attack, why is there any forest left around?" I wondered.

Armalita perked her ears up as she looked at me. "Good call. They must wait until they see prey wander into the patch, and then they attack."

"Uh, guys?" Cobalt whined a bit.

"I wanna see one up close," Raina said.

"No!" Christy exclaimed.

"You don't get to tell me 'no', softie. I can handle a dragon." she replied, looking basically back to normal.

"Guys…" Cobalt practically whispered.

"Why do you even want to get close to one!?" Christy demanded, stressed out and fearing her sister was going to do something ridiculous.

"Because I want a dragon." Raina looked up, hands on her hips.

Christy's jaw dropped. "We are not getting a demon as a pet!"

"Sandra has a pet!"

Well, this was getting fucking surreal.

"That rock thing isn't threatening to eat us!"

"That's because she's lame." Raina retorted.

"Stop, stop!" I exclaimed, getting in between them. I earned a quick cut to my arm from Raina because of the opportunity I gave her. I held my arm and shot her a 'really?' look, only to receive her shrug in reply.

"Um…" Cobalt sounded frightened, and I turned to him for a moment, seeing him looking up at the demons. "Armalita?"

The wolf girl looked over at Cobalt questioningly. He turned to her, and we all caught our breath at how terrified we looked. "... **We're** in the patch…" he whispered, referencing Armalita's earlier words.

Indeed we were, stupidly standing around in the death zone. And as if on cue, we heard a violent screaming-slash-whistling in our ears. "What the heck is that!?" Christy screamed, holding her sensitive ears. Armalita had one arm over her head, holding her ears down too.

"Look up!" Armalita called over the noise, as I switched forms to have less sensitive ears, and I saw a black dot rapidly becoming less of a black dot, closer and closer!

"Demon!" Armalita shouted, "Get down!"

Christy acted instantly, her tails whipping out and grabbing all of us, and one grabbed a tree to the side. And she whipped us all behind the treeline and fifteen feet until we brutally crashed into the undergrowth together. I shifted before impact and reached out with my senses, trying to see it.

If aura senses needed to 'blink' I would have missed it. It was so fast. The dark shape dove into my range at a vertical angle, and unleashed flame right at the bottom, and then suddenly curved at a right angle super fast and at eight feet from the ground, the fire from the creature extending out in a freaking beam that roared across the creature's mouth as it passed, the beam going away just as soon as it started, but not before the angle the dragon-like creature had taken had dragged the beam across its stretch of ground that it used to hunt. And as the creature shot forward and pulled up, the ground exploded under it. Then it was gone, leaving the dirt to resettle.

"I-is it gone?" Cobalt asked.

I opened my eyes and got a better look. Bright green flames were dying out on the ashes where the demon had struck. It definitely followed its pattern. "Holy crap… Overkill much?" I asked, groaning as I got up.

"They... must like their meals **extra** well done," Christy commented as she got up. She was moving a bit weirdly.

"Where's Sandra?" Armalita asked.

"I got her, I got her." Christy nodded to the feline who was sitting, looking kinda confused, in the grass. The beast was nowhere to be found.

"Where's Crystal?" the drunk asked, and I looked at Christy. Then I paled. The kitsune was staggering, her tails weaving about in an abnormal manner, slower than normal.

"Shit." I cursed, and Armalita looked where I was.

"My sister's tail must have touched Christy's when Christy saved her. This complicates things." the wolf said, looking back. Christy fell into my arms as I steadied her. "Christy wasn't able to pull the beast out of the way." she said quietly."

There was a growl, and Armalita stopped where she had been moving to look. "It's back for its meal," she whispered. I looked through my aura senses once more, finding Crystal quickly.

"Crystal's getting up," I whispered back, then noticed the demon from before landing between Crystal and the nearest treeline. "I can't tell if she's hurt."

I snuck over to the entrance of the ash patch, looking at the two beasts confronting each other. Crystal looked totally unharmed somehow. The demon looked kind of smaller than I expected. Like Demon had when he last kicked my ass. "It's young…" I whispered to Armalita, who had told Cobalt to keep an eye on Christy and Sandra and let her know if anything had happened. She nodded and looked grim.

"That's a lot of destructive power for being young." she mumbled with a frown.

"Crystal tanked it like a champ." I said, "We should back up…"

There was a sort of horrified fascination in watching the two steady themselves, before the demon, about half the size of the crystal beast, pounced, crashing into Crystal. The behemoth didn't even budge. Probably thousands of pounds of pure crystal, looking down at the dragon that attacked it. It was sleek, with a long tail that had fins on the end of it. It was a draconic creature built for speed, with wings that were perfect for maneuvering, judging by its ninety degree turn from a dive to horizontal. I hadn't properly seen them in action. Demon didn't exactly go on leisure flights.

I watched the fighting style carefully. Demon took me out so easily I didn't know exactly how he fought. I knew I had no chance against him, but I wanted to know how this one fought. Demon would play his strengths. It was just common sense. And nobody knew how an animal's body handled better than an instinct-driven, unintelligent version of them. Because they worked on instinct. The way this demon would fight is how Demon would fight because Demon was a demon.

The demon leapt off of Crystal and pulled it's wings out, it's body catching the air instantly as it sharply curved around the back, getting from in front to behind the behemoth in less than a second, just by basically surfing on the air using its wings, as if the air could easily support it. The demon struck at Crystal's tail, landing on it and opening its jaws. A literal laser beam of green fire erupted from it in a consistent stream, blazing against the back of Crystal's neck. It didn't seem to hurt her too much. Maybe all we needed was Crystal.

Nope, no, Gabriel, you are not putting someone's pet into the line of fire. Demon's way more powerful than this instinct-driven… What does one call little demons?

Crystal kept getting attacked, as the demon swooped up with a flap of its wings and began a sharp turn, orbiting the air above Crystal and firing it's green fire laser at Crystal constantly, tracing the attack across her impenetrable body, swooping the impact point across whatever could be a weak spot. No dice. Eventually, it went back to scratching at her eyes without missing a beat. The thing really did fight like a demon. Not the species demon, more like… Whatever. I understood myself.

Crystal rumbled at the demon, a warning, maybe. Perhaps it was getting annoyed. She slowly opened her mouth, facing the creature and away from all of us.

"What's it doing?" I asked quietly.

"I don't know…" Armalita replied.

There was a soft humming sound, and I saw light starting to gather in Crystal's mouth. I leaned over towards the side so I could see into her mouth, while Armalita remained directly behind the creature. White energy had started to gather in the back of Crystal's throat.

Then it happened. A horrible flash, with a rushing sound, and my world turned white. I shut my eyes immediately, trying to block with my arms. I started to feel my fur burning, and shifted to avoid that without using my head. I felt the nasty burn cover my skin, and I shouted in pain, and then it was over.

I landed on my back, more from pain than from any impact. I painfully opened my eyes, looking at my skin. I'd covered my eyes with my arm, so they were fine, but the rest of me that was open to the light, without clothing, was **toasted**.

"What… Ow… Owowow…" I whined, rubbing at my face. It was like I'd gotten a really bad sunburn in an instant. I looked up, and saw Crystal closing its mouth as the demon flew away. A new scorch mark filled the trees, but it wasn't like the others. Just being toasted with that light… Whatever.

"So." I whipped my head to see Armalita, her arms crossed over her chest, She was untouched, as was all the ground nearby her. "Anything in the line of sight of the beast's open mouth gets struck by its defense mechanism."

"Pain…" I said. "I thought you'd be the one to pull me back…"

"I believed just as you did, that it would be more offensive. It wasn't very loud, but the closest thing I can come up with is a flashbang."

"Flashburn…" I corrected, grunting as I managed to stand up.

"You have half of a tan and your eyes have an uneven strip of your natural color."

"It'll heal… I hope." I grumbled. "We need to go, before it gets back. Ow. Ow."

"Crystal, follow!" Armalita called as she half dragged half helped me back to where everyone was. Raina saw me and immediately chuckled.

"What's wrong, buddy boy. Can't handle a demon by yourself?" she asked. If she was resorting to direct insults and not just making me bleed or teasing me in… **her** ways, she was probably salty about not getting to have a pet dragon.

"Actually, Crystal did this to me," I explained, pointing weakly at the beast lumbering up to us. There was a squeal and Sandra jumped into Crystal's side, laughing about having her friend back. Christy stumbled right into me; She was not going to be helpful in getting out of here. "Ow," I complained.

"Damn… I'm really messed up…" she mumbled "So tired…"

"Stay with me, fox girl." I held her close with one arm, turning to everyone else. "Cobalt, Armalita, we need to get away from the mountain. We can't backtrack, it's as unknown as the terrain we should be going on because of the mist, so we'll be going through odd terrain…And we might have to take trails that Crystal can go on. We're lucky the trees are far enough apart as they are."

"Sorry…" Christy mumbled at my shoulder, and I jostled her quickly.

"It's okay, Christy, you saved Sandra." I soothed her, wincing at her incoherent mumbling that followed. She was in bad shape. I didn't want to drag her along with her stumbling. So I just pulled her up and held her in my arms. "I'll carry her. She won't get any better if she's anywhere near Sandra."

"You do that." Armalita looked up through the trees at the mountain. "Those things are built for speed. Lage wings, smaller, streamlined bodies… Their necks are long enough to allow them to fire their blasts at multiple angles. And the raw power…"

"We get it," I said, a little frustrated. "They're powerful and fast and we might be screwed. We need to get out of here, and I don't know how we're going to do it."

"Use your aura senses. Cobalt, stay near me and do exactly as I say." Armalita ordered. She left Raina out of that sentence, but I didn't think she'd stray very far. Wait, crap… She apparently wants her own pet demon now. She **might** stray off.

"Armalita, can you keep Raina in line?" I asked, troubled.

Armalita frowned, sparing me a glance as she whispered to Cobalt. "No."

Well, shit. I looked at Christy's sister, who was frankly minding her own business looking up at the sky. It was time for me to do something stupid, and hopefully, we wouldn't have to try and coerce her the entire time. "I knew you acted weird when I told you all about Demon, the most elite at the compound."

"Yeah? What of it?" she asked, inspecting her claws in a way that displayed how sharp they were to me.

I took a deep, deep breath. "Look. Once Boreas is… **Gone** , uh, we can start working on rehabilitating Demon, just like you. You don't need to wander off and try to wrestle one of these dumb beasts into the ground. When he's emotionally… Competent, I guess, we can let you take a crack at him. Until then, please stay with us…"

Raina raised a brow. "Oooh, you're lucky your girlfriend isn't in her right mind right now," she told me with her usual teasing tone.

"Look, I get it, but she'd kill me even more if you went and got injured when I could have stopped you. And that's the best I could think of before you went and got yourself burnt and shredded."

She rolled her eyes, demonstrating easily how she felt about whether one of these demons could actually hurt her. But, she looked me right in the eyes afterward. "Deal, buddy boy," she said with a smirk, walking past Armalita, who seemed to not be judging me, which I was grateful for.

As I started to walk past her, she started walking in step, Cobalt hurrying to catch up and be nearby us. He beckoned Crystal along while making sure we were still with him. "She is going to need a guard that can handle her when we get to your compound," Armalita told me flatly. "That was a good distraction, but she's going to get impatient outside of the compound while we're doing our job."

I nodded, realizing she was right. "Christy's not going to let her go in. She'll be asked to stay with Sandra, Crystal, and Cobalt." I noted simply.

"She won't comply," Armalita said.

"Christy's the only one that can handle her." I frowned. "But Christy… She's going to have to choose who to protect."

"Then help her make that choice." Armalita looked ahead. "There is one other matter to consider," she added.

I looked at her. "What?"

"Boreas." Armalita elaborated simply. "If a taikan kills him, there's not going to be an end to the war. You'll have to do it yourself, and claim to have done it on your own."

"But I… Well, I killed Malvolio." I pointed out, looking away. "Look. The way the countries are lead isn't so different, when I look at it. I don't know if Boreas has someone extra to fill his spot, but Malvolio apparently didn't. And the strategies of just making innocent people take up weapons and throw themselves into a deadly fight is… Very similar."

"...You're right." Armalita agreed after a moment. "I don't like it. It doesn't make sense."

I turned. "What doesn't make sense?"

"The way everything is organized. Like it's built to fall. A house of cards." Armalita grumbled. "A sensible leader would have trained someone to act in his stead and keep him close and safe. Malvolio didn't have that. As if he'd decided if he was going to die before he won, he'd let everyone else fall with him. I even directly advised that he change his habits, like his reckless decisions to increase security in towns that nobody would even need or want to infiltrate…"

I successfully held back a snort.

"It was like he had built it to die whenever he did, and until that point, he would throw everything he had at it. It doesn't make any strategic sense." Armalita finished, looking as if she had confused herself.

"I never met Boreas personally." I offered. "This old guy and these four weird laptop guys were the ones that talked to me the day before I left, like subordinates. But if he's got a stronger strategic sense, why haven't they won yet?"

"You said they."

"I don't feel comfortable being on anybody's side… Well, except for our little group." I added. "But you see my point, right?"

"That something more complicated is going on," Armalita said grimly. "And that we're not seeing it."

There was silence as we stopped at the sign of another stretch of ash, and started ushering Crystal and the others around it. At this point, Christy's tails were starting to cling to me. She seemed to be the kind of person to get sleepy when drunk. In fact, she was snoring lightly now.

"At least we'll hear them coming." I pointed out randomly as we started moving again, wanting to fill the silence like I have a tendency to do. "We're alive because they're freaking loud."

"Their wings make the air whistle and scream as they dive," Armalita noted. "The growls the thing made when it fought Sandra's pet were low, deep. Not highly pitched."

"Wouldn't that make them **more** noticeable?" I asked. "I mean, in terms of prey."

"That would be where the velocity comes in," Armalita replied drily. "And the explosive cursed flames."

"Right." I felt a little embarrassed.

"Spiders don't get every victim either. They just survive on what they do manage to hit." Armalita added. "If they didn't manage to get enough food to survive, they just wouldn't exist. They would have died out."

"I wonder what a fully grown one looks like." I murmured.

"Pray we don't find out," Armalita told me sharply. "The prokopian named Demon. How old is he again?"

"Around my age, I think… Eighteen, nineteen…" I muttered.

"Do they grow at a relative pace to their subspecies?"

"Uh…" I muttered. "Yeah, I think so. Dog subspecies prokopians' beast forms grow with their human forms. So if a demon takes a long time to grow to their max size, a prokopian demon would probably grow to their maximum size faster. Depends on the usual lifespan of the beast compared to our human forms."

"And how fast the beast grows, I suppose. Neither of us knows exactly."

We stopped. Directly ahead of us was another strip of ash. This one was somewhat larger than the last. Probably meant a larger demon. Maybe. We were too unprepared for this. Story of my life.

"Armalita…" I muttered, looking down and thinking. "You and Cobalt are going to have to take the lead on this. Christy's totally out. Raina's not to be trusted…"

The unique taikan waved, smirking.

"Sandra's always in need of protecting, and Crystal's a good defender, but she's big and bulky and her defense mechanism hits anything with a line of sight of her open mouth, which is a lot. My aura vision just doesn't have the range to spot the demons until it's too late and they're too close. The best I can probably do is beat them back with aura spheres because there's no way my aura flames can pack that kind of punch."

Armalita nodded. "Then I will take the lead. Remain here, for a moment. Cobalt, come with me.

I nodded and stepped back, watching Cobalt uncertainly let Armalita lead him away while I finally turned around and approached Raina, leaning Christy on a tree nearby and sat down next to her as gingerly as I could, trying to keep my burnt half from touching anything.

I looked up at Crystal, meeting her bright spotlight-eyes. It was looking at me, but I couldn't tell if it was curiosity or what. I didn't think it was intelligent. Actually, we weren't sure if it was really a 'she' either, but I got outvoted on that bit. It didn't speak, and didn't act very much. It was a very lazy creature, so lazy that we couldn't analyze its behavior properly to determine what level of intelligence it had. It looked kind of cute, for a rugged looking creature, because of how the face was shaped kind of canine-like.

"I like to think it's admiring its handiwork," Raina commented from the side.

I didn't like thinking of it that way. " **Thanks** , Raina," I grumbled.

"You're welcome, buddy-boy." Raina spun that switch between her claws. "You're starting to seriously become boring."

I looked at her. "...Because Christy would stop you from hurting me if you tried?" I asked.

"At least you banter well." she shrugged. "A funny guy who stayed funny after I give them my… **Treatment**."

I didn't like the way she paused and used that tone. "Am I going to be more boring if I ask you to stop trying to sound sultry all the time?" I asked.

"Yep."

I looked at Christy, who still seemed to be sleeping. "...I'm fine with being boring if it means she's safe," I told Raina. "Trust me, I'll try to be fun and entertaining whenever I can, but…" I rubbed the sleeping kitsune's head and cut myself off.

"I wasn't going to listen to you anyways." she shrugged again and sat back, tossing the golden ellipse up and caught it in her palm a few times, fidgeting with it as she spoke.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

I couldn't open my eyes. Too tired…

I was a little annoyed. Couldn't I just be totally out of it? Instead of being physically impaired to the point where I can't stay awake properly?

It must have been my mind magic. I was pretty much lucid. Problem was, I was physically exhausted. I couldn't stay awake. I heard Gabriel talking to Raina until he stopped, and I heard Armalita and Cobalt speaking a ways away, but I couldn't tell what they were saying. If I kept my eyes closed, maybe I wouldn't fall asleep again.

Gabriel noticed I had woken again, but he didn't talk to me. Maybe he assumed I was totally out of it. I'd prefer it at this point if having the ability to manipulate the mind didn't protect my own mind from the same power, because being lucid but still having trouble functioning was **infuriating**.

Armalita approached again, and I tuned in. "Let's go," she said. "Gabriel, you keep Christy safe. You will be guiding Crystal around with us. All of you, keep your eyes on the sky. Do you see the sun? It will set over Demon Mountain. This is a maze in which we can't take any open paths. Triangulate us consistently southeast, using the mountain and the sun. When it becomes night, we won't be able to see the pitch black mountain, so we will be stopping as soon as we can't see it."

She spoke to Cobalt. "Stay close. You may be heavily resistant to most attacks, but a demon will melt you without hesitation. I will need you to keep your ears out for any suspicious sounds. Can you do that?"

"I can, Armalita," he said, as if he'd been prepared to say it for a while. I guess that's what they were talking about.

I couldn't see what he did, but judging by Armalita's response… "I trust you, Cobalt. You don't need to be so uncertain of yourself."

"I-I know." he murmured.

So he must have turned away or closed his eyes or something. It was good to see Armalita helping him. He needed the support. And having it come from someone he had probably been smitten with for a while could help his confidence even more.

Gabriel picked me up gently with his aura flames and placed me in his arms again. He felt overly warm. Hadn't he talked about some kind of burn before? I decided I wanted to ask and managed a drunken mumble.

"You'll be okay, Christy," Gabriel told me, starting to move. I wanted to roll my eyes. If he was hurt, he should be getting himself some help.

So I stayed silent for a while, keeping my ears open and just listening. Everyone walked at a quick but controlled pace. The larger 'thump' sounds from Crystal walking behind them as Gabriel led the creature. I could hear those things hanging from his head vibrating as he used his aura senses to map out his surroundings. And Armalita took the lead.

Five minutes later, Gabriel got bored of the silence. "Hey, at least we're not gonna run into a prokopian patrol!" he pointed out, trying to lighten the mood.

"Because we ran deeper than should have even been possible into demon territory."

Apparently, Armalita was not in the mood for banter.

"You need to stop surrounding yourself with serious people." my sister's voice, stunningly close. To Gabriel, too, because he hopped a step away from her, the jolting movement causing me to reflexively tighten the grip my tails had on him.

"How do you move so quietly?" he asked, unnerved.

" **Maybe** it's because nothing rustles around when I walk." Raina retorted. I guessed she had her cloak off again.

"Cloak on," Gabriel ordered right away. Damn, I'm good.

For some reason, my sister listened to him. I could tell because I heard the cloak fluttering about and Gabriel not mentioning it again. He started forward.

Four minutes later, Gabriel yelped and leaned forward, stumbling.

"C'mon." I heard Raina say, and I envisioned her pouting. "Wasn't my cloak going to make me so much more **obvious**?"

It was true. She **still** hasn't made a noise with the cloak moving about. But Gabriel had a retort planned. "You must have a lot of practice." he shot back. I imagined him smirking, because he pointed out to me and her that that meant she wore the cloak more often than we might have expected.

"Don't get excited, buddy-boy. Malvolio would tell me to wear it if I was going to get caught up in a meeting when he gave orders."

"And besides army movements, what else happened during those meetings?"

"Jack shit," Raina said as if it was natural.

"Nothing about community or… Anything else a leader might mess with?"

"Nope."

Gabriel kept walking, falling silent. Things calmed down after that. I felt myself falling asleep. God, I felt so tired…

…

 **Boom!**

I jolted awake, scrambling, or trying to. I was still struggling to move. My eyes opened, though I still felt sleepy, and sat up, wondering what was happening. I clenched my eyes shut, shaking my head rapidly to try and wake up more. "Wha-... What happened?" I asked.

Then Gabriel had me in his arms and bolted away, looping around a bright blue rock thing that I **guess** was Crystal. "Crystal knocked a tree into the ash strip and caught a demon's attention!" Gabriel shouted back. As he kept running with me in his arms, he grinned down at me. "Welcome back to the world of the living."

"It sucks here!" I retorted

"Good to have you back!" he shouted back, hiding behind Crystal now while I rubbed my eyes. "That was quick, by the way."

"Mind magic," I said, seeing him blink dumbly. "I was lucid, Gabriel, just really sleepy!"

"Oooh." he nodded. "Because alcohol does bad things to people physically too."

"Yeah. I'm still feeling tired… Probably will for a while." I clung to him with my tails, straightening myself. "A long while… Ugh…"

Armalita plopped down next to us. Her arm was scratched up, which I was going to assume Raina did if Raina didn't pop up on our right, next to Gabriel instead. I looked at her questioningly. "Charred tree splinters at neckbreak speeds," she said by way of explanation. Cobalt fell next to her, gasping, looking unharmed, but there were those shards of blackened wood caught in all of his fur. "Cobalt protected me from most of it." Armalita added, giving the metal dog boy a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder.

"Where's Sandra?" I asked.

"Still on Crystal." Armalita pointed up.

"Yee haw!" the feline exclaimed as our living crystal shield suddenly moved away from us, maybe because Sandra had just directed it as if it were her mount, driving it forward.

"No!" Armalita shouted. There was a low-pitch growl, and a blasting sound, probably one of those demons' lasers, and I tried to scramble to my feet. Gabriel caught me with his arm because I stumbled and fell just as quickly. We all turned as Armalita stalled, probably trying to remain calm and figure out a safe plan to get her sister out of her situation.

Then we got a closer look. Crystal stood above a demon again. "It's bigger…" Gabriel muttered as we watched. Sandra had been thrown from Crystal, straight onto the creature's neck, having clung to it on reflex. It fired, and missed Crystal practically by a mile, wobbling on its relatively short legs. "Uh…"

Armalita facepalmed. "The demon's drunk."

"Bad dragon!" Sandra punched the creature in the head, causing it to smack its head into the ground, letting out a deep sound of discomfort and pain. Then Sandra hopped back to Crystal, clinging to the beast's rugged cheek and clambering up to her neck again.

"Crystal, come!" Gabriel shouted as we ran back into the safety of the trees, watching the beast lumber after us. Soon, we were safe again and the demon tried to fly away, flapping its wings to get airborne but then misjudging a wind current and crashing into the trees on the opposite end of the ash strip.

"We're safe, for now," Armalita said, running up to Crystal. "Sandra… I'm glad you're safe…" she whispered. I remembered that it wasn't safe for Armalita to hug Sandra. Their version of love was very much a non-contact one.

Maybe I was really distracted, or maybe I was a **little** drunk, even with my mind magic, because I lost focus on any imminent danger to wonder whether that was going to extend to whoever Armalita fell in love with.

"Glad to see you too sis!" came Sandra's chipper voice, oblivious to the danger she'd been in.

Armalita was back to business quickly. "This is serious. The number of ash strips is increasing around this area. There are some watering holes nearby, which increases the number of animals that would normally wander by because they need water. That means more demons. We may even be forced to pass through some of these strips. We will hold a position underneath Crystal as we do so, ushering her on."

"It sounds like the safest plan that won't put Sandra in danger." Gabriel agreed.

"But it took the first demon ages to notice us." I pointed out.

"The tree hadn't fully fallen down before we heard the screaming this time." Armalita pointed out, before pausing. "I realize you weren't awake at the time. Regardless, we have to assume we'll be assaulted the instant we step out into the open space."

"The first one was young. Maybe it wasn't looking at us as the time, more easily distracted." Gabriel said.

"And cost the thing it's lunch in the process." Raina threw in there.

There was a pause as Armalita considered what to do, her expression grim and serious. I turned to Gabriel, looking him up and down. "Gabriel, you said you got burnt?"

He shifted, knowing I wanted to see, and I looked closely. His clothing had protected his body mostly. There was a strip of okay skin where he had thrown his arm before him, but the rest of his face was seriously sunburnt. His coat and other articles of clothing protected the rest of him. "How bad does it hurt?" I asked.

"Hot, but it only hurts if someone touches it." he replied.

"No kissing?"

He smiled. "I guess not."

I eyed him and that smile, and then managed to walk around him, feeling as if I was recovering quickly. Between his shoulder blades, Raina had nicked him with a claw, probably when she startled him the second time. I didn't know what to do about it, and Gabriel quickly turned to face me.

"I saw it," I told him.

"I know." he slowly put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm all right, Christy," he promised, before turning to face Armalita again.

"You call bleeding all right?" I asked.

"Shouldn't my coat have repaired itself? You shouldn't see it." Gabriel protested, missing the point.

"I can see the blood on it." I deadpanned, pulling his collar down to get a better look, despite the protests of his I heard in the background. It was just a scratch, honestly, enough to bleed but not too much. "Alright, it's really not that bad, but you don't do that, Gabriel. No hiding injuries from me, understand?"

"Yes, Ma'am." Gabriel was subdued.

"Crystal, follow," Armalita ordered, having picked a path and starting to follow it for a while. We took up space behind Crystal and Sandra, sneaking through the trees. It was tense, every time we had to backtrack to get Crystal through a different path, every moment we heard a violent screaming in the distance as a demon dove down to get prey a good distance away from us. It was relatively predictable, but that simply did not stop it from being frightening.

Then we hit a dead end.

"We can't get Crystal through these trees without knocking them over." Armalita looked back. "We have to backtrack"

"How far, like fifteen minutes? This place is getting more insanely filled with ash strips as we go." Gabriel pointed out. "If we drive Crystal through this, we can get across before we're attacked, unless somebody gets distracted or something."

"The trees will probably be knocked into the ash strip." I pointed out, pointing beyond the thick array of trees before us into the sunlit patch of black.

"Even if we hide under Crystal, we can't escape the fire." Armalita pressed. "We could still be burned."

"Fire manipulation magic." I lit one of my tails on fire. "I don't know if I can manipulate cursed flames, though…"

"Then we'll find out," Gabriel said. "Christy, I'm going to sound insane, but I want to bait a demon."

He was met with silence for a while. Before I could decide to tease him about how insane it sounded, Armalita nodded, drawing attention to herself.

"We can make the demon attack by being in the ash strip," she said. "Christy, I am going to have to ask you to extend your tails into the strip and coil them up in a way that at least resembles a creature. I do not know if they choose what to attack based on that, they might just attack anything, but for the sake of making this easy…"

I got it. I started coiling my tails into my best impression of some kind of quadruped, and walked it forward, through the trees and into the ash strip. Immediately, the air screamed as the demon dove through it, shooting out of the sky and down towards the place.

"Get out of there," Gabriel told me swiftly, afraid that if my fire manipulation didn't work on the cursed flames, my resistance to it wouldn't either. I obeyed and whipped them back, a full second passing before the demon roared down and past, making a startling ninety-degree angle to go horizontal and blast everything nearby. Knowing the plan I stretched my tails forward again and activated my fire manipulation magic, trying to pull some of the flames towards me.

It worked like a charm, thankfully. I now had a little fireball hanging in the air in front of me. We watched it carefully as I decided to test water on it. I removed a little bit of my water from my water container and swiped it through the flames. The flames weren't hot enough to make the water evaporate, we would all feel it if it were so. Instead, the water and the cursed flames just didn't interact. Like neither existed in the view of the other. Kind of like when Gabriel's aura flames passed through me without affecting me back in the compound.

"Just flames that work in water," I muttered, putting my water back for drinking later and waving my hand through the flames. It was warm, but I was resistant to it.

"The danger isn't in the nature of the flames." Armalita reminded us. "But the concentration. Those demons unleash intense beams of the fire, which isn't how normal fire acts, but it is compressed into a beam when the demons fire it. Christy, if you need to deflect these attacks, do not use any less than all of your tails for the task. It may appear to be overkill, but we are taking no chances."

Then she froze, her ears and Cobalt's ears twitching as they spun around. Then I heard it; The growling. We looked back at the ash strip and saw the dark shape crawling across the ash strip, looking over its kill zone and searching for it's perceived prey.

Then it saw us, and I realized how big the thing was. It was probably the biggest they could get. Wait, I can't say that, bigger ones will show up because I said it, darn it… Maybe…

It dove, crashing through the trees with more difficulty than Crystal, but still making it through relatively easily. Then it was charging us.

We didn't panic. Panic would mean that we would put each other in danger. Armalita snagged Cobalt and jumped to the side with him, managing to lug the metal dog taikan out of the way of the charging draconic beast. I extended my tails out and promptly surrounded and lashed the creature, forming knots at its joints and pushing with the might my strength magic gave my tails, narrowing my eyes as it started slowing down but still advanced on me. Then Gabriel's aura flames joined the mix and the creature was forced to stop, glaring at us through the azure flames. We started to try and push it back, but it opened its maw and the azure color changed to a kind of turquoise as we saw green behind the blue, and it fired its beam.

Gabriel yelped as the beam of green punched through his flames with raw force and raced right at him. I wasn't having it. Nobody melts my man. Halfway between the demon and Gabriel, the beam rebounded off of thin air as I tried to take control of it. It was hard to control. Six tails gave me a lot of power, but I had to really focus. I couldn't make all of it obey, so I settled for making the beam bend away safely. It shot over Gabriel's head as he stumbled back while keeping his aura flames up, reaching into the sky like a bright green forty-five-degree angle beacon.

That beam just kept coming for a while, and I started pushing it back with Gabriel, while he tried to make it flip onto its back. It kept fighting us, but together we were **amazing**. We pushed it onto its back and kept it there with all our might. Gabriel looked tired already, perhaps because his aura flames took more effort to use than my tails.

"How do we get this one to leave!?" Gabriel shouted at me once the sound of the beam was lessened because the demon had just started to let it die after we stopped being in range.

"I don't know, what happened to the small one?" I shouted back.

"Crystal made it run away!" he exclaimed. "Crystal!"

The beast looked at Gabriel with a slight tilt to its head, not understanding why it was being called.

"Somehow, I think she's more the self-preservation type," Raina commented, the only one looking calm in the group.

"We have trouble!" Armalita barked. "More are coming!"

"Why!?" Gabriel shouted, keeping his focus on the demon he was helping me hold down.

"The demon's fire, it went up into the sky! Either they noticed that, or they **really** don't like the blue of Gabriel's flames!" Armalita called back, having to raise her voice because of the imprisoned demon's roars.

I lifted the creature, grimacing in concentration, and tossed him horizontally in between some thick trees. "Run!" I shouted and we just **bolted**.

"Giddyup, Crystal!" we heard, and I turned back to see that Crystal was trotting (which easily kept pace with us), while Sandra was safe on her back. Knowing she was fine, we started running. We stopped caring if Crystal knocked over trees because when I looked back up, there were at least six more demons diving diagonally down towards us faster than anything I've seen.

Apparently, they protected each other if in 'danger'.

We ran recklessly now, knowing that we just were not in the position to strategically dance around these things. One was so tough to hold down alone that the rest would kill us, and they were flying at… What I assume was mach something. It was really freaking fast.

They flipped themselves sideways as they shot into the trees, and then they did something **scary**. They curved while sideways and used their momentum, all of them circling us at the speed of fan blades, managing in their sideways position to find gaps in the trees to weave through. I skidded to a halt, as did most of us because we were **not** getting through that wall of death. Then I realized what would happen next and I activated my fire manipulation magic in all of my tails, and did the equivalent of giving the basic order **up**.

I know, it attracted more demons the first time, but down means boom and maybe death, forward means boom and **definitely** death, and backward means counteracting the continuing stream of fire momentarily.

We didn't get that far as to need it. Because we stopped, and Crystal didn't. The beast plowed into the line, and the first demon crashed into it, followed by the next and the next, and they moved so quickly that it took a mere second for the wide circle of dragons to smash into each other and topple in front of us. While Crystal fell on her side and Sandra laughed maniacally.

"Left?" Gabriel asked, his voice a touch higher pitched.

"Left." Armalita agreed, and we twisted on our heels and started running around the pile as the demons scrambled to stand and get space in the thick trees, finding little luck.

Crystal managed to get to her feet and run after us, although we were all the way around her before that happened because of her usually sluggish movements. I guess she relied on momentum to get anywhere, like when she charged, or had to travel. Or maybe the species didn't need to travel. If it was photosynthetic.

There was a lot of roaring from the demons as they struggled to get their momentum back, and then things started exploding. Gabriel grabbed us with his aura flames and I snagged Raina with my tail by reflex as he pulled us all into a single file in front of Crystal. Then the lasers started flying by us, sweeping past and trying to nail us. Occasionally one would flash between Crystal's legs, and I even got nicked by one as I ducked, but not badly enough to be injured because of my protection. I wasn't doing my **job**. I started using my fire manipulation magic to try and bend the fire beams away from us. It wasn't easy. I mean it **really** was not easy. But I did it, because we had to survive, had to get out of here.

The forest was being torn apart as we ran through it, even as we bolted straight into an ash strip. We were halfway across it when the shrieking sound alerted us that another demon was diving. We were out of the strip before it blasted it, but the heat was felt by some of us. Damn, these things were freaking fast!

I searched for Raina again, desperate not to lose her. I didn't see her, and promptly panicked. "Gabriel, I can't see Raina!" I practically screamed.

He kept his eyes closed. "She's on top of Crystal," he said in a more bland tone than one would expect from someone running for their freaking lives. "Guess she didn't want to run on her own."

"On top of Crystal near Sandra!?" I shrieked.

"Further back."

I brought my tail up around Crystal and swept around the back of it, snagging her and bringing her back down, just electing to carry her. I trusted myself better than I trusted Raina in the open near Sandra. She said something, but I effectively tuned her out because we were running for our lives. I would give an apology she would condescendingly smirk at later.

Step one, two, three, four, etcetera were all **survive**.

More high pitched whistle-slash-screams pierced the air as the wings of the diving demons ripped the air they passed through apart. I wondered what would make a demon stop attacking. Crystal'd chased off the first one by flashburning it... And Gabriel's face too.

"The amount of hunting alleys are increasing around us," Armalita warned as she spared glances to either side through the trees.

"Any ideas?" Gabriel asked. "

"Other than no longer letting Raina out of my sight, I don't know," I said.

"Spoilsport." I heard Raina comment but ignored her for the moment.

Gabriel didn't though, his habit of using his mouth a lot while in danger shining through. "Somehow I don't think this is the right time to get involved in a rodeo, Raina!"

She crossed her arms. "Being attacked by swarms of a dragon's cooler cousin while dodging dozens of green fire lasers and running through a maze of trees and deadly kill zones is the **only** way to get involved in a rodeo." she refuted without missing a beat.

Armalita swore ahead of us, and I forced myself not to be distracted by my boyfriend and sister's untimely banter in time to see what she was upset about.

We started skidding to stop, and Crystal started slowing down as we did, but I'm really not sure why we did. Pure reflex, probably. "Christy, get in the back and keep the beams away!" Armalita shouted, and I looked back, realizing what I needed to do. I used my tails on Crystal's hind legs and slingshoted myself under the beast and skidded to a stop behind us, focusing solely on my task.

"What am I looking at?" Gabriel asked. "I thought these guys hunted with those strips?"

"You're not wrong. My guess is that's a lot of ash strips side by side…" Armalita murmured. I wanted to turn around to see what was going on, but guess what? Redirecting dozens of green fire lasers of death constantly is hard.

Oh, and the demons were charging us from behind at the same time. That was a thing.

"Guys, we need to go!" I shouted.

"We can't, there's an entire clearing of ash out here, we'll be sitting ducks!" Gabriel called back.

I swore violently. "Crystal, follow!" I called as I turned, wrapped a free tail around Raina's midsection to take her with me, and shot two of my tails over to the left. I then wrapped my free two tails around Gabriel and Armalita. My final tail I snagged Cobalt. My tails that were in the trees snagged some tree trunks, and I yanked the lot of us to the left to try and escape the vice we were caught in.

Hearing Crystal thumping after us, I gritted my teeth and used my third free tail, now that it was no longer redirecting fire to start pulling us through the trees even faster by keeping two points of contact.

And I almost thought we were getting away. Suddenly my vision turned white, and for the first time I think, I felt an extremely painful sensation that I assumed was what burning felt like.

" **Christy!** " Gabriel roared as I felt my direction change and I lost all control and went into a topspin even as I closed my eyes, waiting for some impact. However, I felt myself slow down and stop in mid air, cracking open an eye weakly to see myself bathed in the blue glow of aura flames.

Then I lost consciousness.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

Crystal stopped in the perfect spot, blocking further attacks. I didn't care about that. Christy dropped into my arms as I let up on my aura flames, staring at her as she was in my arms. She had a pulse, and she was breathing well, but she was out. I heaved out a breath. She was alive.

But she was burned. Her left side had been blackened, the force of the fire so intense that it broke through six tails worth of fire manipulation passive defense. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't pretty.

"Focus, you fool!" I was tackled to the side along with Christy and felt the heat as a beam passed us by. "We're still in a battle!"

Armalita got off of me with a fluid movement and darted behind one of Crystal's forelegs. I nodded to myself and did the same with one of Crystal's hind legs. Raina had done the sensible thing and taken shelter behind Crystal's other foreleg.

In that barest moment of a lull, I turned my attention back to Christy in my arms, and I absently tucked her blue hair out of her face and focused again, surrounding myself in aura flames.

I guess demons don't like the color blue, because more beams zipped by the leg I hid behind than Armalita's now. I turned them off with a grimace, knowing I had to keep Christy safe at all costs.

This really wasn't how I wanted my day to go.

The temperature was rising as plants around us started to catch fire. Green fire. We couldn't put it out even if we had Christy, and none of us could control earth to snuff it out from a distance. I was really starting to wonder if we were doomed.

"Here they come," Armalita growled. "Everyone, grab onto Crystal's chest, and we will try to direct her."

How on earth was I gonna get there from Crystal's hind leg without getting melted? I looked up at Crystal, seeing her rugged flank. Could I horizontally rock climb to get over there, or would I have to just jump? They nailed Christy when she was going fast, we couldn't take chance. Oh, and I had about a second to decide.

I looked around, trying to locate everyone to see if everyone knew the game plan. Where was Cobalt? I looked at Armalita, but she was looking around as well.

I panicked for a moment and used my aura senses. I found him, and he was lying on the ground near a heavily damaged tree trunk, slowly moving to get up. He must have slammed head first into the thing, and now he wasn't prepared for the danger.

We really needed Christy right now.

I surged my aura flames out in all directions suddenly, enveloping the whole area. I had to do this so the demons didn't target Cobalt the instant he came into view. They didn't like the color blue all that much, or they just don't like my flames specifically. Still, I was able to grab Cobalt and drag him over to me.

"Get up, come on, I need you to focus," I told Cobalt as I made the aura flames go away and kept him behind Crystal's leg. I raised my paw and snagged a corner of Crystal's body, trying to pull myself and Cobalt up. He yelped and instinctively grasped Crystal's side as I pulled him up to it. "Sorry about this."

I used the strength my beast form gave me and grabbed Cobalt. With a grunt of effort, I tossed him over to Armalita, him being defended by Crystal's flank along the way. She was forced to half let him fall due to his weight, but she steadied him and hurriedly directed him to cling onto Crystal's chest while I tried to work my way over.

The demons made it here. I wasn't far enough, but I made the jump anyways because otherwise, they wouldn't get away. Christy still in my arms, I hopped as best I could to Crystal's right foreleg.

A blast of green fire struck my hind paw, exploding as I hit the ground.

I was launched, letting out a high pitched whine, and I felt Christy's weight leave my arms. I didn't know what happened, but my safety was **not** important. I fought through the pain of the fire, feeling like the metal in my bones were melting, and I looked through my aura senses again. This was life or death. I didn't have the luxury of not being focused enough.

Armalita had desperately snagged her childhood friend out of the air when I had gotten blasted, clinging to Crystal with the fingertips of the hand she wasn't using to hold Cristy, but I wasn't going to have anyone to snag me out of the air. Christy was safe. That was all that was important.

I started falling, and I knew I'd be in firing range again in just a moment. I couldn't fly with my aura flames, and I didn't know what to do.

Then something caught the collar of my trench coat and stopped my descent just as Crystal started moving, starting to run again and using her head to bash trees out of our way.

I cracked an eye open, wondering why I wasn't dead.

"What ever would we do without your ridiculous banter?" Raina's voice floated to my ears. "Man, you just can't have an epic moment without nearly getting your ass killed, can you? Be lucky Christy would have wasted me if she knew I'd let you fall."

I was feeling groggy, but I was lifted to the rugged surface of Crystal's chest, moving and bending slightly despite being crystal because of whatever magic I assumed was causing that. Still, I felt the thing and I clung to it with my hands, feeling her grip lessen. She knew Christy wouldn't have hurt her in a million years, and we knew I knew **that**. "...Thank you…" I mumbled, trying to brace myself with my feet on Crystal's chest.

I yelped in pain and looked down at my left foot. The paw was blackened and deformed with severe burns. I couldn't even feel it unless I touched it, which I assume meant most of the nerve endings had been roasted away. It was disgusting to look at, and I hoped it wasn't going to stay that way.

"You won't be walking until you can get that healed." Armalita looked **way** too calm considering the situation.

"Hey, guys!" Sandra gave her input from Crystal's neck, waving cheerfully down at us even as a beam zipped right past the lucky girl's head. I looked at Armalita, seeing her look afraid, a look I don't think I've ever seen on her. If Sandra stayed up there, she could die. If she came down here with us, we could all wind up dead because of her magic. I saw the fear slowly fade into a strangely calm look.

"Sandra… Come down here, to my left. Gabriel, get Christy" Armalita said.

My eyes widened. Armalita was going to potentially get herself killed like that? "No, I can do this!" I shouted, releasing aura flames and curving them around Crystal's neck, enveloping Sandra before she could move a muscle and carefully carrying her down behind us. I closed my eyes. I could do this… Keeping her at a safe distance by seeing behind me with my senses, and holding her out in front of us. I hoped Crystal didn't think it was their species' version of a carrot on a stick.

And then things got repetitive. Armalita kept an eye on both me and Sandra, Cobalt was clinging to Crystal and had his face buried in the solid surface, hiding his fear. Raina was just hanging out practically impassive to my right. Cristy was still unconscious in Armalita's arm. My left foot and some of my leg was pretty much unusable right now… And Sandra was giggling without a care in the world.

I heard crashing constantly as Crystal bulldozed a trail through the forest without a care for paths. She made our position relatively obvious, but we were running away from the mountain, and all of the demons approached from behind us.

But they were faster than we were, and because Crystal was taking down trees, we were pretty visible from the air. I recognized something was wrong when we all heard the shrieking of a demon ripping through the air.

I focused on my aura senses, knowing there wasn't anything else I was going to be able to do, and reached out as far as I could. The demons came down from the sky to our left, and curved to a horizontal position before turning partially in mid-air.

Three full sized demons body-slammed Crystal at top speed.

There was a moment of raw silence as Crystal tilted dangerously to one side… And then she toppled over. We crashed to the ground, and then something hit me right in the side that was moving too fast to register properly. I forced my eyes to remain closed, gritting my teeth as I rolled across the ground uncontrollably and bashed my left foot into the ground repeatedly, getting dirt in the wounds.

I came to a stop, and was about to move, but a heavy force slammed into my chest. I could see the blue outline of a demon, it's left paw firmly on me. My eyes opened finally, looking around. Armalita and I had gotten tossed, Christy with us, but the demon that had hit us off had landed on my chest, ignoring the other two. I was its target. I was its victim. Up close, it was an awesome creature, its bright, acid green eyes rimmed by its sleek black scales, it's white teeth, no, they were gray, but clean. The eyes were devoid of malice or hate. It didn't have anything against me. I was just dinner.

It opened its mouth, and I saw the green glow start to appear in its dark throat. Was this really where I was going to die?

Christy needed me.

She was unconscious in the ash, open to any demon that might strike her down, as was Armalita, though she wasn't unconscious and could potentially get them to safety, but they wouldn't make it, not this time.

They needed me.

 **She** needed me.

 **Christy. Needed. Me.**

I roared louder than the demon could have, unleashing as much aura fire as I could, and a lot more than I intended were released in a massive wave. I had a one track mind now, and nothing was going to distract me. I was going to survive, and I was going to save everyone and protect Christy. I lunged up, balancing on my right foot and wobbling before looking around. I didn't see Armalita and Christy, and I blinked. Where were they?

Then Armalita dropped from the sky, landing in the perfect superhero-like pose. I searched out and found her… In the air? I looked up and darted forward, catching her in the nick of time. Only then did I look around for the demon. It was writhing on it's back a huge distance away, doing, well, I'm not sure.

"What just happened?" I asked even as I tried to let Armalita pull me away, only for me to shriek as my burnt paw hit the ash, and I stumbled.

She got under my left shoulder to support me and started walking me forward as fast as she could for a moment without speaking. "You told me once that your aura flame take power from your force of will," she said. "You just sent everyone sky high except for those still near Crystal-"

She cut herself off and pulled on me harder, and I turned to see why. Crystal's mouth was beginning to glow again. Nuh-uh, I did **not** need more burns. We shifted behind her as she fired, and I got to see the **spectacle** that ensued this time. Just everything except what was behind her turning to pure white in a massive wave of pain. There were screeches of fury from the demons as Crystal blinded the ones that were here.

We walked up to Crystal weakly, Armalita still standing strong. Cobalt sat against one of Crystal's hind legs, hiding from the demons and kind of curled up, shivering. He really wasn't supposed to have to go through such frightening stuff. Sandra had somehow gone from inside my aura flames back to riding Crystal at the base of her pet's neck, and Raina was kind of hanging out, despite the threats.

"We don't have time. Crystal, come!" Armalita called, causing the creature to slowly turn around to face them while the demons flew away blindly.

I gripped Christy and Sandra in my aura flames as Armalita tried to stay calm as she directed Cobalt to grab onto Crystal's chest again, and we all got into the safe zone again. I floated Sandra in front of Crystal, again kind of treating the clueless taikan like a carrot on a stick because it seemed to be able to lead Crystal around easier.

Crystal lumbered after Sandra in the bright blue aura flames as soon as I hovered her before the creature, and we started moving once more. And even though the whole sequence had taken less than twenty seconds, we could hear the sounds of demons diving again.

I held on with one paw and one foot and held Christy close to me in my other arm, closing my eyes. How much longer would it be?

Some demons swooped down from in front of us. They were ready to fire. I looked at them, knowing that I was the only thing really standing between Christy and oblivion. I had to manage it.

I unleashed as much aura fire as I could, creating a wave of flames that rushed at the demons even as they flew at us. I angled the fire like a spearpoint, and the demons flames blasted through, but not without consequences. What would have been my face wound up being Crystal's shoulder, which didn't hurt her much. The other sailed past Crystal's head. Then the demons angled upwards and flew over us all, their shadows covering us for only a split second.

Then they suddenly angled themselves and did a collective u-turn in the space of a courtyard's worth, a small one, they came at us from the side, and I tried to push them away again.

I got a headache and felt really drained of power just from the impact. But everything else faded away again. The only thing limiting my force of will and thus my aura flames was myself. It's more complicated than 'think it, do it'. It's about motivation.

But this was life or death, this one moment. And no matter how painful it was, these dragons were going to experience **hell** if they tried to hurt Christy anymore.

They were slammed by the wall of azure flames, growling as they rebounded above us again, and Crystal dove into the treeline, leaving gargantuan footprints because of how fast she was moving. Well, not fast, but not slow, really. Who cares how sluggishly something moves when it's stepping distance was huge?

"Whoa, whoa…" Armalita called to Crystal, to no avail. Hey, it had followed orders before. But it just kept carrying us this time, at the same pace. I really wished I understood this thing.

Crystal just kept moving, and then suddenly it started weaving between the trees instead of smashing them down. It found paths for itself and started to slow as the demons broke away from chasing as they were forced to search for us.

I fell of Crystal, making sure Cristy landed on top of me and not under me. Man, I was really hurting. Armalita dropped down and took a knee by my side. "You need medical attention," she announced.

"Christy first…" I grunted, gritting my teeth "You need her… We all do…"

Armalita should get my meaning. With exception of Christy herself, I was expendable. Christy was indispensible to everyone.

She smacked me upside the head with the blunt end of her trident instead.

"Ow! Why!?"

Armalita responded by going over to Crystal and searching her flank while the beast started to lie down in the wake of the calm because we were hiding out of their hunting area. "Our bags are gone," she announced. "Burned away by the demons, I reckon. We have no supplies."

She walked back, looking me in the eye. "Christy isn't the only one you matter to, idiot. Every step of the way, you look at us as Christy's friends and companions. As if she's a bridge between our worlds. But Cobalt owes everything to you too. And your quick thinking and powerful abilities saved my sister's life, and you gave us a chance to end the war for good. Even Raina listens to your words, for reasons I imagine we can only wait for her to explain, which I doubt she will. I owe you Sandra's life, as does Sandra, though my little sister isn't likely to realize that. Finally, as you just demonstrated, when all is said and done, you can fuel your aura flames just by being overly determined to succeed for Christy's sake alone. So tell me why it is that you act as though you're a tool for us to use, expendable?"

Damn, her gaze was intense. I couldn't meet her eyes.

She lifted Christy off of me and gently set her down on the ground next to me. That was when Cobalt joined us, shaken, but on his feet. Well, until he collapsed into a sitting position near us. "I thought we were going to die…" he whispered.

Armalita dropped down next to him, gripping his shoulder. "It's not over yet. We've only got a few minutes if we're unlucky. We have to get out of this territory. Then, we have to locate food and water **immediately**." she explained simply. Then she looked back at me. "There's a difference between selfless and self-destructive."

"You can't… Blame me for putting Christy ahead of myself…" I muttered.

"Absolutely not." Armalita agreed. "However, I most certainly can blame you for trying to put less severe injuries over your very severe injuries. But, we're out of medical supplies."

She got up and walked over to the nearest bush, and up at the tree next to it, seeing no large leaves or any plants. There wasn't enough variety. She instead came back. "Keep that leg off of the ground," she ordered, and I wasn't going to argue. Seeing nothing to prop it up, I settled for folding my right leg underneath my left one just before the burn.

"Raina, your cloak," Armalita ordered.

"Hang on-" I couldn't finish because Raina had already tossed it to Armalita, happy to do something to annoy me. Armalita took a hold of it and held her trident to the fabric. Great, now it wasn't going to be-

She slashed down it, taking off a three-inch wide strip along the wide bottom of the cloak, shortening it a bit. "Aww…" Raina complained as she got it back.

"Gabriel would have a juvenile fit if I didn't," Armalita explained dully. She drowned out my complaint at her words by grasping my leg, making me yelp despite her not touching the burn directly. She stretched and wound the cloth around and around my burn tightly, despite my wincing. Soon she had the entire burn wrapped in the long strip of cloth, and she pulled two long needles from her tail, as long as chopsticks. She poked them through the fabric parallel to my leg, making sure it held the first end of the makeshift bandage to the other end, holding it in place. "I realize the only thing this will really accomplish is protect it from the elements, not treat the wound. But it's what we have, so deal with it."

"Yes, ma'am." I nodded meekly.

"You have this nasty habit of not screaming when injured," Raina stated, sitting herself down in a relaxed manner. Cobalt and herself had come out unscathed, one because he was made of metal and debris wouldn't injure him too badly, the other because… I don't even know. Her body looked **really** soft, and seeing how Christy tickled her, I would say probably. She'd definitely not gotten through that without a scratch by means of durability.

I laughed, two parts mirth, one part slight hysteria at our current situation. "Sorry, are you disappointed?" I teased, knowing what she meant.

She shrugged.

Armalita was analyzing Cobalt. "You're all right, Cobalt. It's safe for now…"

"That really doesn't help…" Cobalt muttered after that rather tense 'for now'.

"It will have to," Armalita said simply. "Because it's all we have."

"Armalita… I'm scared…" He whispered, shivering. She responded by squeezing his shoulder with one hand and lifting his chin to make eye contact with the other.

"I know." she was calm, reassuring. "I know. Believe me, I know. Only a fool isn't scared when their life is threatened."

Cobalt looked at her a little funny. "But you're not scared…" he murmured. Ah, flirting. Accidental flirting.

Armalita heard a growl and turned to the trees, seeing no demons within eyeshot at the moment. "I'm afraid, Cobalt, very afraid. But I don't show it." she turned back to him. "I bury it, because if I don't we might not survive."

Cobalt kept staring at her, but I turned my attention back to Christy. I set my hand on her shoulder comfortingly, recognizing how we were still alive, despite having lost most of our material things. Christy would be crushed about losing the nice fabric and all the cooking materials and the ingredients, but I knew she wasn't obsessed with those things. It mattered to me that she was alive and it mattered to her that I was alive.

I calmly reached down and picked up one of her tails, and rested it on my head, pressing it down so it didn't fall off. " _Christy, can you hear me?"_ I asked mentally. " _I need you right now… I'm scared something's going to happen and one of us might not make it…"_

She really was out. I sighed and moved her tail back, glancing back at the group. Raina played with our gold switch, Armalita coaxed Cobalt into relaxing, and Sandra happily drank from her bottle atop Crystal.

Armalita stood up. "We'll accomplish nothing out here," she announced in a whisper. "Besides getting killed. We need Crystal to sneak through the trees again, like before. There can be no mistakes this time."

She directed Cobalt to help me up this time, which he did with his great strength. I kept a grip on Christy as he supported me, and we started to limp forward.

Crystal stood and lumbered after us, Armalita carefully directing her through the trees while Cobalt and I and Raina took a more direct and slower path. I kept Christy in my arms, not using any aura flames, which the demons seemed to take a serious offense to. I was starting to wonder if blue was to these things like red was to bulls.

Which sucked, because literally four of us have blue fur in varying amounts.

I have no idea how long we walked. We moved so slowly, so carefully, wincing at every pounding noise Crystal made with the ground, Cobalt avoiding looking at my burnt up leg that I was keeping from the ground, and Raina minding her own business again.

Eventually, Armalita looked up through a gap in the trees. "I believe we're nearly there," she said, stopping.

"Why are you stopping?" I asked.

"Just to demonstrate. Look." she gestured upwards. "The demons' flight path ends in that sweeping motion up there. I'm looking at where they all turn back, and you can imagine the line it makes across the sky."

"Then we're safe if we get past that line?" Cobalt asked quickly.

"We're safe if we get far, far past that line." Armalita corrected flatly. "Keep moving. No rest until we are away from the mountain."

No complaints were issued. Armalita was the seasoned warrior and could do her job well, and we knew it. We started to trudge on, quieting and walking. I occasionally turned my aura senses on, scouting around us though I doubt it would do much good. I at least could keep an eye on Sandra, who was happily patting her feet against Crystal's body while she sat at the base of the beast's neck.

"Y-you said at some point that you had metal in your bones, right?" Cobalt whispered to me, breaking the silence and looking at my wrapped up leg.

"Yeah…" I muttered. "And it might have been melted somewhat. I don't know if it can heal properly like that…"

"I-I'm sure it will." he tried to assure me. "I mean, I heal."

This guy didn't need me directly shutting him down, even if I had my doubts. "...Thanks, Cobalt." I gave him a smile. He looked happy to have been able to speak up and help, which I was glad for. The last thing he needed was to feel bad for himself.

We kept walking… And walking… And walking… And walking… It felt like it was taking so much time to do, but that was probably the imminent threat looming over our heads that we were leaving behind.

Christy let out a whine, signaling that she was waking up. I immediately took notice, though I kept walking so as to not unbalance Cobalt. "Hey, sleepy fox…" I whispered, causing her to open her eyes slowly.

"Gabriel?" she asked, then coughed. "What happened?"

"You got blasted by a demon and lived." I grinned at her. "We're almost out of here. Just stay still, all right?"

"You're… You're okay?" Christy asked. I smiled.

"I'm fine, Christy," I reassured her.

"Burned and maybe kinda melted, but fine." Raina sneered at me. I glared back as Christy started to squirm.

"You **are** hurt! Where, Gabriel?"

"...Left foot…" I grumbled. "It's just burned black and maybe melted… It's not **that** bad. I think the fire didn't spread across my clothing properly…"

Christy grunted in pain as she tried to move, and I shook my head. "Worry about me later. We've got you. We've got to get us to safety."

She looked unhappy, but quieted down for a moment. "And…" she started, looking past me up at Crystal" ...Did we lose our bags?"

"Yeah," I said quietly.

"M-my cooking equipment?" she whispered.

I couldn't help it. I started smiling and started laughing soon afterward, keeping quiet, but laughing nonetheless. Christy looked at me like I had gone mad, and her tail came up behind me and touched my head. " _G-Gabriel… Are you all right?"_ She asked me worriedly.

I managed to calm down and look back at her, smiling. " _It's just funny. I knew it was going to happen. You care so much about your cooking that that's the first thing you think about"_ I squeezed her a little harder to comfort her. "It doesn't matter if we lost everything we have, money, food, or anything else. We're all alive. All of us made it, Christy. And look!" I tugged at her sleeve "Your jumpsuit's intact. Even if you got seriously cooked under it."

"You are such an idiot." Christy deadpanned.

"That's my job." I grinned. She whacked my cheek with her tail lightly, and she looked around again.

"You're right… I did get way cooked… Ow…" she whined. "Guess this jumpsuit's got something about it, though. It was still on me even when I toasted Keyterayn…"

"And buddy-boy here isn't bleeding out the nose of the thought of his girlfriend naked. Weirdo." she directly insulted me.

Wait…

Christy chuckled, and darn it, if all my arms weren't currently in use, I'd try to keep her mouth shut. But I couldn't do aura flames, too much light emitted. Blue light. Much like crystal, actually… Whatever, it was confusing. Point is, Christy was gonna embarrass me in front of her sister as retribution for my shenanigans. "Actually, he couldn't help but bleed through the nose when he was trying to teach me what 'proper attire' meant. It was pretty funny."

I closed my eyes in defeat.

"Oohhh, buddy boy **does** have a weakness." Raina crowed, stepping near and trying to reach the zipper on Christy's jumpsuit. Christy, though, thankfully, snagged her wrist with a tail.

"Need Gabriel focused, sis." Christy pointed out, still happy with her own success.

I grunted, not wanting to deal with that conversation. At least Christy wasn't worrying too much. Leave that to me. Considering we have several days more travel to go and had to find enough food to sustain six people and also manage to locate water for six people too.

"We won't be wanting for water," Armalita spoke up, almost as if knowing I was thinking it.

"Huh?" I asked dumbly, looking around.

"Christy can draw the mist down and condense it into enough clean water for us to use," she stated. "We do need to construct containers to do such a thing, but we can."

"It's good that we've got you to think these things through right away." Christy complimented her friend. "The rest of us might have celebrated our survival for a while instead. Thanks for keeping us on track."

"You're welcome." Armalita nodded, still looking serious. "Now, I don't want to take any more chances, and I don't know enough about how demons operate to know if they have decent ears. Let's keep quiet for another mile, and then we can rest. We should be safe then. Two miles."

The quick revision only served to make the tension rise, though that quickly devolved into boredom. Absolutely nothing of note happened for an entire three-hour period.

But we were safe.

"Rest," Armalita ordered once we were surrounded by mist again. Cobalt didn't look tired, but he was all too happy to obey the order and he helped me and thus Christy down. Christy was doing well at this point, so I let her out of my arms and she half sat half crumpled to the ground with a grunt.

"Being burned for the first time is really weird… And painful." Christy complained.

"Christy, come with me," Armalita said as she kept standing. "I'm going to need to see the severity of that burn, considering the fabric wasn't destroyed, and… We don't need Gabriel bleeding out."

"Not you too…" I complained. That wolf could joke without losing that straight face without fail.

Christy stood, though she winced while doing so, and followed Armalita without complaint.

"What should we do when we stop resting?" Cobalt asked, bringing my attention to him.

"My guess is Armalita's going to send us on an errand to find out how to make water containers." I guessed. "After some actual rest, though."

I let myself fall back onto the dirt beneath me, taking deep breaths. "We made it, guys," I muttered. "We survived demon territory."

" **I** enjoyed myself," Raina announced, twirling our little gold switch like she always did. The only treasure we had left. We might have to sell it to get some supplies back if we stop at a town on the way to my compound.

"Of course you did, you maniac…" I muttered.

She chuckled. "Would have been fun to get a pet demon out of that," she said, ignoring my comment of questionable accuracy. Maniac doesn't feel right when describing her, on second thought. Still, it was the first time she expressed wanting anything aside from seeing one of us bleed, which was new and illuminating. "I'll just grab that guy you were talking about."

And there it was. Dancing my way around **that** problem was going to be really, really hard.

"Hope you don't mind abandoning that little gold thing if we have to sell it," I commented, changing the topic. She raised an eyebrow at me, as if daring me to take it, and I reminded myself that she could probably annihilate me in a fight if she really, really wanted to. She playfully spun it in front of her before sweeping her hand across the top, striking the switch in the process.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

"Carefully." Armalita said sternly as I slid my left sleeve off of my arm, leaving the rest of me covered and exposing my left arm, shoulder, and side for Armalita to look at the burn. It definitely looked burned, my fur was blackened and withered, though not destroyed. "Tell me how this feels." Armalita continued, gingerly tracing her palm over my arm.

"Ow. Ow. Ow." I answered honestly, instinctively trying to pull away.

She then moved along to my tails and clenched one of them, squeezing softly. That didn't hurt, and I told her so. "Your tails are in good shape then, good," she noted almost to herself. "The best treatment that we can manage is the first step in dealing with a burn, but we don't have enough cloth to form a proper bandage afterward. I presume that your jumpsuit is tight enough to do a similar job. But right now, you are going to use your magic to turn the mist around us into a layer of water and keep it on your burn underneath your jumpsuit. It's very important."

I nodded. "Okay." I set my tails aglow and started bringing the nearby mist into a liquid sphere of water. Then I brought it forward and carefully layered it over my burn, wincing in pain. I kept collecting it, spreading the water into my jumpsuit until I reached points that weren't burned anymore.

Once Armalita saw that I had covered myself halfway in the water, she started helping me get the jumpsuit back on, and zipped it back up so I didn't have to use my right arm to cover what had almost been exposed. I kept my focus on the water I'd layered on my burns, knowing that I needed to keep that water there for a bit. It was soothing now, and the water kept my jumpsuit from rubbing on the burns, though it made the suit look weird and a bit bloated.

"Christy, did you stuff something in your suit?" Gabriel asked right away.

"Just some water. It's helping with the burn. Now that I'm up and about, let's get some cold water on your burn too."

"But you're still feeling pain from moving…" Gabriel started, because of course, he did. I rolled my eyes and bent down to the wrapping on his leg, failing not to wince from the burn.

"The difference is that I **can** walk, while you **can't**." I retorted. "I know you just went through a bunch of trauma, but this isn't time for your hero complex to spike."

"Christy… I just watched you get enveloped by a beam of pure cursed fire." Gabriel pointed out slowly. "How am I supposed to react? Anyone else would probably have died in your place, and… And…"

Gabriel, who had probably been bottling the fear he'd felt up for the sake of keeping everyone alive was breaking through. I felt at his head with a tail to get a better idea of what happened, and he had no complaints, as usual, mental or otherwise.

What was really eating at him was that one moment when he'd seen me being perfectly still after the blast, just silently floating in his aura flames. Seeing it from his perspective, I tightened my lips. I really looked like I could possibly be dead. I retreated from his mind and gave him a smile, trying to be as comforting as possible. If I'd thought I'd lost Gabriel, I don't think I could have done what he did to help get everyone out alive, I'd be put off. I figured I would have screwed up. Or maybe even attacked the demons directly out of anger, which might have been suicide.

I gingerly unwrapped the makeshift bandage that looked to be a piece of the bottom of Raina's now slightly shorter cloak. I carefully lifted his leg with three of my tails gently bringing it up from under him, and shivered. That burn looked like it was going to leave lasting marks. Actually, I doubted he would be good to run… Ever. He might get back to walking. He didn't have any resistance to fire, and not that I'm complaining, but how had he taken so little damage from a blast like that?

Keeping the water on my own burn, I brought more water out of the mist and started applying it to Gabriel's burn. He yelped as I started, but he released his breath in relief a few moments later.

"Soothing, right?" I asked as I started to wrap his leg up again, replacing Armalita's needles when I was done. "I can't keep these bandages on and keep a bunch of water on your wound, so we'll just let the fabric dampen a little bit, okay?"

"Sure."

I gave those bandages a good soaking, and then dispensed with the leftover water, as I doubted it would make good drinking water after it was used to help treat the burn.

"Now everyone… Stop moving."

Armalita's order was met with a deluge of exhausted and relieve noises, and I sat down next to me while Armalita made herself comfortable on the opposite side of cobalt from Gabriel.

"Everything okay?" he asked me.

"I don't get to cook anymore," I answered, which didn't really need explanation.

"We'll find raw materials and let you at it," Gabriel assured me. "Your burn?"

"Not as serious as yours," I answered a little evasively, but shook my head. I didn't need Gabriel to worry about me, which would be the only thing that kind of evasion could cause. "It's honestly fine. I'll make a full recovery. Yours, though… I don't know, Gabriel, that's probably going to leave scars, if you'll be able to use your leg properly again…"

He laughed. "Christy, I have a nasty habit of surviving crap that should have killed me. I'm lucky to have even been thrown by the beam; I might not have been thrown into range where Raina could grab me. The burn itself isn't going to kill me anytime soon."

"That isn't what I said…" I muttered, filing into the back of my mind the fact that Raina had rescued Gabriel at some point while I was unconscious.

He gripped my arm calmly. "Remember who we've got upstairs watching over us? I'm sure we won't have to worry for long. Who knows, maybe Mr. All Powerful can get us our stuff back. I'm going to assume we can ask him to heal us."

"How are you going to talk to him?" I asked, before realizing that was a bad question, because I knew the answer.

He laughed and rested his head against the ground. "I'm gonna take a nap," he announced.

"Can we all do that?" I asked.

Armalita looked to the sky, pondering. We were out of danger, but we need to gather resources. I am not entirely certain about this mist, what is causing it, and whether it will last. I want to gather a water supply before we commit to sleep for today, even through our injuries. Gabriel can and should rest, as he is the only with a critical injury, but we should get to work once more before we sleep."

"We are starting to come out of winter," I noted, speculating about the mist. "Are you cold? I can't really tell, because of both my resistances and the burn"

"I have a fur coat," Armalita answered. Raina just shrugged. She had a lot of fur, and was probably thriving in this temperature, but her face was open to the elements. She didn't seem to care.

"I'm a little cold…" Cobalt contrasted them. He was made of metal. He was susceptible to the temperature of his surroundings.

"Do you need to find a way to warm up, or will you be all right?" Armalita asked him.

Cobalt looked up. "I-I'll be fine," he said a little hesitantly. His timid personality might get in the way someday, but I somehow figured that he would grow out of it with Armalita's help before it turned from cute to boring.

I looked back at Gabriel, who had already fallen asleep. He must have gotten quite the workout today. He deserved his rest. "We'll be all right," I said in his direction, though I was really talking to all of us.

We would. I knew we would be fine. I just knew it.

* * *

 **Hm. As it turns out, the starting A/N added about a thousand words to this. Didn't realize that until I saved the file. No matter.**

 **Demons! And you know they're dangerous, because our plot-armor donning protagonists were still nearly killed. Thank goodness they had a near-indestructible and definitely fireproof beast to watch their backs. I find it REALLY hard to provide character development for a creature of questionable intelligence and no speech patterns, so I'd like to know what you got out of how Crystal seems to work. Thank goodness Christy had six tails of fire manipulation magic at her disposal, so they didn't all get blackened and eaten.**

 **Also, "Flashburns". I really like Crystal's 'defense mechanism'. I was proud of everything about the species I created, both Crystal's species and the demons.**

 **And after Raina's issue last chapter, it's kind of fitting that she manages to get through that entire ordeal unschathed.**

 **I'd try to fill this low A/N with enough words to break 20k, but... Nah.**

 **Please give me a review and share your feedback with me, and if you enjoyed, feel free to follow the story so as to recieve updates when the story grows further. Good day.**


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Hey, everyone. Sorry if you read it the instant it posted and didn't see an A/N because I was in a rush.**

 **Let's jump into reviews quick. Ready? Go!**

 **Going from first to last, we start with Westernfail. Thank you for showing me that I'd done well making the demons interesting. Though if you're wondering about why they would attack Crystal, the simplest explanation I can come up with is an analogy like a spider's web. The prey get's caught and moves around a bit, and the spider feels the vibrations and attacks. Wheras demons see their prey walking around their 'web', the ash strips, and attack.**

 **That's not a bad analogy on the appearance of a demon, Aewynessa. While it's true the night fury species had some influence, including the whistling sound they make when they dive, I honestly hadn't thought about the monstrous nightmare. Though they aren't quite the same, it gives someone a pretty close mental image. I'm glad the humor is good enough to warrant being your favorite part as well.**

 **It is true that that's a bery slow pace to be moving, though to be fair, they had to get Gabriel out of there, who's leg was kind of ravaged in the attack.**

 **Jango's not here today to mess with anyone because Amber's grounded him. It might have been the most serious offense he's done in a while, and in his timeline, it's probably been years since he's done it... Oh, the horror...  
**

 **It's true, What Lies Beyond. I've now made two remarkably powerful weapons out of crystal. Though Crystal is more like a walking wall than a weapon. And a freaking cute dog thing. Like three days ago, I had the random thought about Crystal meeting Clifford the big red dog. You know, from that old kid's TV show that I don't watch?**

 **It's confession time though, I've been wanting to establish that Gabriel switches forms multiple times for convenience so that I can gradually tell the reader what form he's in through key words like 'hands' or 'paws'. I do have to be careful not to screw it up if I want to do that, of course. I'll have to see if it turns out to be smoother to just say he shifted.**

 **Oh god, Mirkwood. I was just talking to Aewynessa about the spiderweb analogy.**

 **Thanks for the heads up about credit, but now I'm super concerned about Frost. Please do make her promise to leave me out of it? I don't care if she's after Jango...**

 **Unanonymous, that's food for thought about Crystal's flashburn. Since the attack causes a severe sunburn, it's not out of the question that it could require some of the energy she gathers throgh photosynthesis. And her hide's super tough, of course. She's a walking crystal behemoth. And the crystal she's made of seems to be even more crazily durable than a wall of solid rock would normally be, by a long shot. Though the demons aren't strictly evil. They're just out to get some dinner. As for why they don't like blue, well, I think I have a logical explanation for that, but that's a small bit in a future story.**

 **And Noskillsy! AGuyWithNoSKills, it's great to see you again. I can help with the designs. Close to the start of the story, I referenced an image online that I was inspired by for Christy's design. And Raina is an anthropomorphic mega absol, essentially. Armalita and Sandra are a bit harder to picture, I know. Oh, I so want to tell you what popular design I started as a base for the shape of Crystal. I'll give you a hint instead, the shape of her ears and tail are a huge indication. I've never actually played ghosts and goblins, but Aewyn's analogy of night furies and monstrous nightmares is pretty good, even if it's not perfect. Just think of Sandra as a brown feline and Armalita as a blue wolf with a white belly and black stripes, as well as a black line between the white and blue.**

 **Caleb would actually be excellent at cooking... Because he's excellent at just about anything. Asbel doesn't have the patience though.**

 **It was great to see you again though.**

 **Christy getting hit played with my emotions too, strato-abyss17. Thank you for the praise.**

 **I'm so glad I managed to convey exactly what I wanted to about demon territory, Eric.**

 **(sees your second paragraph and keeps mouth shut)**

 **I wouldn't dare take one of Christy's tails off. She and Gabriel would find me and break me if I caused any one of them a permanent injury just to make my story more interesting. And rightly so. At least it was Armalita's time to really shine as she took charge and got everyone moving. Thank you for reviewing!**

 **AveragePichu (every time I try to spell your name, I accidentally hit 'y' instead of 'u' the first time. I need to get a grip), thank you for that feedback. It tells me the kind of thing that generally keeps someone reading.**

 **Finally, IdkHowToSignUp. I don't know if I got an email telling me about your review, but yes, Raina is an anthropomorphic mega absol. She's a 'unique taikan', which means I could realistically give her the design of my favorite pokemon of all time, for like, ever, for the fanfiction version of the story. if you need to know what 4WD means though, the past reviews may give you an idea.**

 **Thank you all for reviewing. I'm in a rush because I already WAS in a rush and posted the chapter and I forgot the A/N so I'm in another rush, so I'm gonna put the bit about reminding you to review this chapter right... HERE, and I'm gonna say 'enjoy the chapter!'**

* * *

 **Chapter Fourteen: Lycoris**

Weaving. The survival plan involved weaving. My kind of thing!

"This place is gonna have a **lot** less of this grass." I quipped as I delicately turned the rather strong, flat bladed grass Armalita had found into little empty spheres with a hole at the top. It was taking me a while, but after I'd finished the first one, I'd tested it by bringing in enough mist to make enough water to fill the makeshift water bottle, and it worked beautifully because of how tightly I'd woven the grass. It helped that I could repair any mistakes I made with my magic.

"Indeed. We are not risking failing to find a clean water source." Armalita agreed, nodding. She had left me to my devices on the project because frankly, I was a hundred times faster with the weaving than she was.

So the black, white and blue wolf taikan was teaching Cobalt some survival skills as she took him on a walk to find anything that might be edible that we could carry along with us. Good. He needed the strong woman's company and he needed the survival skills.

I finished the next water container and filled it with nice clean water from the mist around us. There was a lot of that mist, very helpful.

Granted, my left side was still burned as all get out. Seriously, the water helped, but moving, not fun. Most of the weaving I was doing was being done by tail. Still, I had it much better than Gabriel did. He was propped up against a tree nearby, where I could keep the water around his burn as I worked.

"How's your foot?" I asked him finally after I'd finished a few more.

"Wet." Came his tired quip. The adrenaline was wearing off, I guessed. I wasn't tired, I'd slept through most of it. At least I think it was most of it. I smiled at the jackal, squeezing his shoulder with my right hand. Then he spoke up again. "We don't have a way of healing me."

"Nonsense, there's got to be a way," I replied, looking at him. I didn't believe what I said and we both knew it. The metal in his bones in his foot and lower leg had probably melted. We didn't have a way to just un-melt the metal, and we were on a time limit.

Extra clothes and other things were gone, along with everything in the packs we put on Crystal. I didn't have anything like cotton to turn into more clothes. The most I could turn the grass into was skin-tight suits that are pretty fragile by clothing standards, which isn't really necessary. What we had literally on our bodies would have to do.

Even if Gabe's eye would twitch knowing there was no chance of getting Armalita or Sandra to dress decently, both for different reasons.

We definitely would need some kind of food… Would we have to catch and…

I looked up as I heard a rustle, and my question was answered at the strange sight of Armalita with a squirrel skewered on her trident, with Cobalt looking like he wanted to be sick in the background.

"Small rodents are going to have to do. Much of our time must be spent gathering food whenever we halt." Armalita stated in that no-nonsense tone of hers. "Frankly you and Gabriel would have a much easier time of this, but if you don't wish to take part in that, I'll do it myself."

"Aww, nobody asked me." Raina's voice came from above, and I looked up to see her standing on a tree branch, aloof.

Armalita looked up at her, one of her ears twitching. "I didn't expect I had to," she responded honestly.

"Fair enough." Raina dropped to the ground level.

"What were you doing?" I inquired, looking up at the branch she'd been on.

She didn't answer, which I reckoned meant she didn't have an answer. My sister flexed her claws, smirking at Armalita. "You leave all the hunting to me," she told the warrior.

I raised a hand to garner Armalita's attention for a moment, and I doubt my expression was all too happy, because I wasn't considering the choice I was about to make.

"Armalita, I obviously don't like the idea of killing, but since I'm going to be cooking whatever anyone catches, if you need my help with that too… I will."

She nodded in response, but then responded with a softer voice than she normally carried. "I believe your sister is completely capable of this herself. After all, the speeds she can reach are absurd," she explained.

"How fast **can** you move, Raina?" I turned to the unique taikan.

"Who cares? Faster than anyone else." She replied nonchalantly, tossing an object at me that I snagged out of the air with one of my tails, revealing it to be my little gold object that she usually was messing with. "Later."

She started walking off at a relaxed pace. Dropping her cloak as she went for a reason **I** didn't quite understand. Some things probably just made sense to her to do. Or maybe it was because Gabriel wouldn't be close enough to enforce the dress code he gave my sister.

I absently traced my thumb across the gold ellipsoid while retrieving Raina's cloak with one of my tails and kept weaving with the rest. How I wished I could see things from her perspective. Looking down, I found myself wondering why Raina liked the gold thing so much. Did she like gold? Was she intrigued because her claws couldn't cut what was supposed to be a malleable metal? Because a lot of her life revolved around her claws, I thought it was more likely the latter. Or had we already asked her? Was I losing it? Wait, yes we did ask her, right after Gabe and I shared the dream with the other Gabriel, and it was about its apparent invulnerability.

That felt a little too close. I wanted to make sure I wouldn't forget any information I could learn about Raina.

I sat myself down and continued weaving while Cobalt took a break nearby, sitting on the ground. The boy had water condensation all over him, water dripping off of his fur, though it seemed to bother him very little. That metal around him must have collected the water from the mist onto him just from the temperature change of touching chilled metal.

"You're weaving those things on muscle memory," Gabriel called out, sounding impressed, and when I glanced at him, he had his smile on his face. I looked back, and saw that yes, I had nearly finished the thing. One of my grass blades snapped as soon as I looked, and I set a tail aglow with green light and the two halves of the grass blade snapped back together again.

"Hey, Christy. Aren't plants living things?" Gabriel asked me from behind.

I saw what he was getting at immediately. "Yes, they are. But the repair magic only works on inanimate objects. Or…" I quickly decided to revise my statement, looking at the rather flexible blade of grass "Things without a brain, I guess. I'm not sure the exact limitations."

I heard Gabriel shifting a bit in his sitting position, grunting as he jostled his foot, causing me to turn to him with a curious expression, with a hint of worry about him moving his leg. "Gabriel?"

"Could it put the metal in my leg back into its proper shape?" he asked.

I recoiled, shaking my head wildly. "I have no idea if it would work on you, and if it does, it could seriously hurt you in the process!" I proclaimed a little too loudly. "Can't you just shift out of it?"

"I don't know how exactly the metal fits in with my bones. Do it, and the bones in my leg could get reduced to splinters or something, I don't know. I'm too scared to try." he admitted.

"So am I." I blurted, mentally cursing Gabriel for giving me that terrible mental image.

"We need some sort of alternative option." I jumped, swearing aloud as my burns acted up in response and I snapped more grass blades. Armalita had managed to nab a few more squirrels. Probably just threw her trident like a spear at them, or shot needles at their necks or something.

"Can you **not** sneak up on me?" I demanded.

"Apologies. It's a habit to move quietly." Armalita started cleaning off her trident carefully until it shined again. "This close to demon territory, the animals are sparser. When we stop tomorrow, we will put much more time and effort into stockpiling food as we move forward. Tonight, the rations may be rather small."

"With Christy cooking, I don't think I could complain." Gabriel piped up, bringing me to chuckle.

I turned to him after I was done being amused. "Gabriel, can you sense Raina?" I asked him.

He closed his eyes, concentrating as he searched the area with his aura senses. After a few moments, he shook his head. Now I was worried. I didn't want Raina to be out of my sight.

I went to stand to look for her, but Armalita's hand clasped onto my shoulder. "Relax," she ordered. "Your sister is the most dangerous thing in this forest. She will be just fine."

I forced myself to relax. "I… I know. I just…" Armalita pushed me down again, as if asking me to focus on the task I had already I obediently started repairing some of the grass I had ripped before beginning the process again.

And for the next hour, I made so many of those water containers that I was getting bored of them, but eventually, we all had plenty of them. But I wasn't done, no way. I started snapping thin, bendy tree branches and started weaving those together in a complex container thing that could hold most of the spheres upright.

"If we could cork these, it would be easier." I pointed out as I started making the mist pour into them rapidly, draining the area of the obstructing white and letting the green start to become more prominent as I filled the water containers.

"We have no way to do so here, so we will have to be very careful. We did make many extras, which will help if we do spill a slight amount from each by rocking them around. Christy, please make more of those little baskets like the one you just made, and we will strap some of them to Crystal's back and carry the rest."

I could **hear** Gabriel flinching as I obeyed the order as quickly as I did. I wanted to get this done, sure, but maybe saying something while I did it would have been a good idea. Still, I gave him a reassuring smile and brushed my tail across his head to mentally let him know that I was all right, and got to work. We had lots to do.

After I'd manufactured the first one, the second one was easy. Muscle memory again. Armalita was setting some of the finished water containers inside the little nest of sticks, while I continued making more of them to accommodate all of them.

Around the time Gabriel looked ready to die of boredom, chatting with Cobalt aimlessly while I worked, Raina came back.

Armalita spared her haul a glance before she apparently decided the squirrels she'd grabbed were now obsolete unless **this** ran out, and because… Well, maybe we could store it, if I used even more water and froze it.

"Capybaras." my sister proclaimed, with about six of the things on her person. The giant rodents' blood was on her fur, and it looks like she'd had a little bit of fun, but aside from that, she had done an efficient job.

"I can see that," Armalita responded drily.

"What the heck is a capybara?" I asked, looking at the oversized rodent.

"They're these real quick little bastards that are super efficient in land and water," Raina responded, holding them out to me while I recoiled. "Don't get your tails in a twist, sis, they're about as intelligent as most animals we use for meat."

"She's right. That is an extremely good find." Armalita spoke up. "Capybara meat is very much edible. But that also means there is a source of water nearby, which means there also may be fruit. Raina, did you find any?"

My sister licked at her claws. "Oh yeah. These, like, bush fruit things. Can't remember their name. Shaped like bell peppers, but kinda purple. **Super** juicy."

Gabriel grunted. "Raina, you shouldn't be eating stuff that might be-"

"Poison?" Raina finished for him, leaning over my boyfriend with her usual smirk and noticeably a lack of clothing again. "C'mon, buddy boy, you think someone in **my** position didn't learn all about poisons?"

"Poison is for killing." I piped up. "What does that have to do with you?"

"There's lots of poisons that aren't fatal." Raina shrugged. "Don't like using most, but I had to learn them. There's this little white berry thing that stings like a **bitch** when the juices are slathered in a wound, and then it gets up into the bloodstream and leaves the victim in a ton of pain. I like that one. I can kinda brush it onto my claws and they become poisonous, but the small amount on a claw is only going to make them feel bad, they can still focus on the main event…" she wiggled her claws. "Point is, the purple fruit things are fine."

Armalita stood. "Where are these berries? Will you collect some for us?"

"Why not." she shrugged, turning around towards the depths of the forest again. I snatched her arm with a tail, though, and as she turned, reflexively pressing her claws against my tail fruitlessly.

"You can take this to contain them," I told her, pushing a sub-perfect basket into her hands, which should help her pick lots of the things.

I was so desperate to help her heal that when she took it, I could imagine hearing her voice say 'thank you'. But it was her younger voice that came to my mind, not the one that was perhaps permanently twisted into that sultry tone.

But in reality, not a word left her mouth as she turned, and she walked off. Judging by the slight sound that those things on the back of Gabriel's head made when they vibrated, he was looking at her through aura vision. Then came the sharp intake of breath sometime after Raina was out of sight. "What is it, Gabriel?" I asked, panic entering my voice.

"Your sister, she just moved faster than I could track. One second there, the next second **gone** ," he said hurriedly, opening his eyes. "When she was tormenting me, she moved her arms really quickly, but holy crap…"

Armalita was silent for a moment while she watched me process that, but then she decided to speak up: "Your sister never shows her full potential, likely because she doesn't care enough to do so. I do not know exactly how fast she is, but to be frank, if she actually wanted any of us dead, we would be."

"Let's be glad the old her is at least there enough to keep that from happening," Gabriel muttered.

"I… I can freeze the meat until we're ready to cook and eat it," I interjected, feeling uncomfortable.

Armalita nodded to me and set about continuing to clean her trident while I got to work, taking more and more of the moisture out of the air, being careful only to take the mist that I could see so I didn't make the air way too dry. I went and made the water freeze in little bits so I wasn't touching liquid water directly, before surrounding the lot of the haul in water and freezing it solid, giving some room for the things to jostle around, but not enough to cause a problem, and they would stay cold.

I levitated the ice behind me as I stood, wondering what we should do next.

"How are we going to do this?" I asked. "We need Gabriel to make… The job, uh…" I almost got too uncomfortable to continue. "Without Gabe, it won't be anything but a hostile takeover. We need him to take charge just long enough to dissolve this whole thing."

Armalita's expression was now grim. "We will talk about that as we walk. In the meantime, Raina will be back soon with the rest of our food for the journey. It's about time we gather our things and strap them to Crystal as best we can, and then you can use your tails to carry everything else, including Gabriel."

"I can carry Gabriel." I found the reason to give him a smile, which he returned. The flirting came out rather weak, but in light of the situation, it really helped me and Gabriel get in a better mood.

Raina walked out of the forest again. Damn, she really was quick. That basket was being held evenly, and loaded with the fruits. They looked absolutely delicious.

"There's a lot of them," I noted. "What are they, anyways?"

Raina shrugged and held it out. She looked really bored. I didn't want her to be bored… But I couldn't let her not be bored through torture. Where was her… Paint?

I covered my mouth even as I coiled my tail in a bowl shape to hold the basket of fruits, now making my load quite large and occupying lots of my tails. Most of my tails were wrapped up in multiple places to accommodate it all and I could stretch them more, but one other tail was for Gabriel, and the last one was for self-defence.

"Raina… Your paint. It was in our stuff." I whispered.

"Nah, I got it."

I blinked. "Uh?"

She walked over to her cloak and pulled the little portable painting kit out of its folds, smirking at me. "You didn't really think I'd just let myself be bored on the trip, do you? Because I **know** you sissies can't handle a little pain."

While the rest of us had been fighting for survival, Raina had been pretty much totally relaxed. She was too fast for the demons to catch her. What sort of training let someone be that fast? Was it some sort of natural ability that came with her unique form, like Gabriel's abilities? I had no way of knowing what was going on with her, or during her life, and I was so afraid to ask.

"It's time to move out. Raina, please help me put these baskets with fruit and water on Crystal and we can carry the rest." Armalita called out, as she was fitting the spheres of grass filled with water inside my construction. My sister shrugged and managed to pick up the spheres full of water without piercing them.

Ten minutes later, with Gabriel in my grasp and Raina riding on Crystal a further back than Sandra so as not to be at risk, painting, we set out. Cobalt seemed to be doing well, his shock having mostly worn off, even if he likely wouldn't forget this experience ever. He stuck close to Armalita. I had Gabriel carefully wrapped up in my tails, keeping water over his burns. I allowed him to relax, sinking into my fluff with a content smile. I was keeping them warm, too.

We walked for two hours before we really got hungry again, and we each picked a berry out of one of the baskets and began to eat them, enjoying the taste and continuing to move. They were rather lightweight, but they would do for food. When we got to dinner time, I would cook some of Raina's kill for dinner.

"The forest is becoming denser." Armalita murmured as she continued walking. "We must be cautious to keep to a path for Crystal and her fragile haul."

I flinched. "You're right… Crystal can power through no problem, but all of the stuff strapped to her is going to get torn off. We'd lose a lot of the berries and water, but not the meat…" I looked back at the frozen solid capybaras I was levitating behind me.

Armalita stepped forward as the trees started to thicken too much. "Cobalt, please join me and we can scout ahead to see if this thins out. If not, we're going to have to improvise... "

Cobalt agreed immediately, as he would. How I wished I could see from either of **their** perspectives to know how that relationship was coming along. Both knew that Cobalt liked Armalita, but neither had had a conversation about it to my knowledge.

The two canines walked off while I patiently waited. The strength my tails had made my burden basically null and void. It was with an anxious expression that I stayed exactly where I was as I waited for the two to return.

Gabriel seemed to sense this. "Christy, they need time alone to successfully become lovebirds." he teased me, and while they didn't know it, he was teasing them as well. I cracked a smile.

"Do you think we'll have to set your lookalike on them?" I asked him.

"Let's do it." Gabriel chuckled along with me. "Right now though, it's pretty hard to go to sleep." he continued, glancing at me with a coy expression. "Even if I feel like I'm in a heated hammock, I can't sleep."

"Probably not, after the day you had," I responded. "Though some people might find it hard not to be unconscious after that."

"But I'm the weird kid." Gabriel closed his eyes, smiling.

"That you are…" I used the tips of one of my tails to rub behind one of his ears, making him hum in contentment before Armalita, punctual as ever, came back.

"We're going a few minutes to the west and then doubling back. There's a grotto in which I believe we should spend the night, with an entrance big enough for Crystal to go through. As well as a little surprise…" Armalita told us, which made me **super** curious. Armalita does not just withhold information. She probably thought it would be better if we saw it ourselves.

So Sandra directed Crystal to follow us as we took the trip around the trees that Crystal would have to knock over. Fifteen positively boring minutes later, we'd doubled back and were approaching this entrance. So dense was it that it looked like a cave made of wood and leaves.

We started moving in, and stopped, blinking. There were lights. Not unnatural. In fact, it seemed to have spawned from a vine-like plant that grew from the ground in the center and spread out in wavy, swirly patterns throughout the room. The plant was beautiful, it's leaves shaped like feathers and the entire plant glowed a soft blue color.

The other light was a pair of yellow spots in the darkness, which Armalita tensed at next to me. "That was not there with the plant." she suddenly said, her trident in hand.

I lit a flame on the tips of one of my tails, and I saw the creature that was pawing at the plant. It was sitting down, and a ring of fluff surrounded it at the base. I realized it was its tail, perfectly sized to fit in a circle around its body, an absurdly fluffy pink tail.

The rest of its body was very interesting. It was like a mix between a wolf and a fox, a detail that was sealed by its four ears. Placed in a line were two fox ears and two wolf ears, the wolf ears closer to the top of its head than the fox ears on either side of them. Its eyes glowed like the sun, literally, as if the sun had a little bit of an outlet in the creature's eyes. The rest of the creature was all pink.

A small vine grew from the earth underneath its paws and seemed to be picking at some of the leaves, plucking some off and storing them inside a wicker ball of some description, before the opening in the ball sealed itself. Then it floated back somewhat and the vine that held the plant sank back into the ground.

"Hi!" Sandra shouted from atop Crystal. Instead of startling the creature, it looked up calmly. Armalita was tense, but I got no negative vibes from the thing.

"Hello," it replied. It sounded female. Was it a prokopian?

I was a bit too surprised to come up with a proper question, so the sorry excuse for conversation that fell out of my mouth was "What is that plant?"

"I believe it's Featherdance." Armalita answered. The pink wolf-fox thing gave a nod in response to that. Armalita looked at me. "It was something I considered fictional. In the tale I heard, a man found this beautiful plant in a cavern, and took it in the hopes of selling it for a profit. But the instant sunlight touched it, it dissolved into cold ash."

"What's it do?"

It was the foxy wolf that spoke now. I didn't even know who she was. "It is an incredibly useful ingredient in several potions." she revealed.

Through the contact my tail had on Gabriel's head, he and I shared a thought. " **Potions**?" we asked, skepticism heavy. Magic potions weren't actually a thing, right?

"Now isn't the time." Armalita interrupted. "We've intruded on you, ma'am. We should at the very least be asking your name."

"I have no name." she replied. "And I am unconcerned about what you perceive as rudeness. My species does not recognize things in that manner."

Armalita lowered her trident.

"What's your species, then? I've never seen anything like you." I asked. "Are you a prokopian?"

"No, I am not. I am a lycoris." she responded. "An embodiment of nature."

Well, that was a thing. Apparently. I'd never heard of a lycoris. At all, like, ever. Not that that meant too much, any formal or informal learning about the world ended when I was six and started again… Not very long ago.

There was absolute silence for about five seconds.

"Why haven't we heard of you?" Gabriel asked the creature.

"We do not seek out contact. The lycoris species does not require companionship." the lycoris replied.

At least she was straightforward and direct. "Um… Are you going to care if we rest here for tonight?"

"No."

"Okay… Um… What's it mean to be an embodiment of nature?"

"My species are deeply connected to the life on this planet. We may use the plants around us like a part of our bodies."

"How many of you are there?"

"Perhaps two hundred in the world."

"Wouldn't anyone have noticed one of you?"

"I am the only one that lives within the area your two species have claimed."

"...Have you noticed the war?"

"Yes."

"...Have you taken a side?"

"No."

"...What do you think?"

"I have no place in what your species does to each other. Nature has a course to run." the lycoris told us bluntly. "I merely exist."

Silence again. I didn't know what to make of this 'lycoris'. She was clearly a sentient being of some description, but her brain must work somehow differently. Did it have no compassion? Or was it simply compelled to ignore that compassion?

"...If you're connected to nature, don't you have some sort of need to protect it?" I asked, not sure how else I could phrase it.

"You wish to know if I care what happens to life on this planet?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"I have compassion." the lycoris claimed. "I do not, however, take part in conflict. Conflict is a part of nature. I do not view conflict in a manner of 'necessary' or 'unnecessary'. Nor do I view it as sad nor noble. I do not experience feelings like sadness for the loss of life. I view conflict as a natural occurrence. They occur. They are eventually resolved in one way or another."

I nodded slowly. "What about your own species?"

"I do not rank myself or my brethren above any other. Were one of them to defend themselves and lose, the conflict has been resolved in their enemy's favor. But the lycoris have the earth as our ally. We do not fall easily."

"You don't experience fear?"

"No."

I nodded again. "Okay… So if I've got this straight, you're essentially nature personified… Impartial, but there to observe either way?"

"That is correct, six-tailed taikan."

Gabriel chuckled, ever lighthearted. "Not even fazed by that, huh?"

"Surprise is not a feeling I experience often, no." the lycoris responded, flicking one wolf ear and one fox ear.

Armalita stepped forward. "Lycoris… I hope you do not mind if I call you that unless we decide to name you-I'm partially certain that you won't care either way-but regardless… We are in need of great aid. Our goal is to end a war and create peace in its place. I recognize that you do not care to interfere in our affairs, but whatever our goal was, we cannot continue without your assistance, if you are capable of providing it."

The lycoris made eye contact with Armalita, and Armalita didn't even **begin** to flinch. I didn't know if the lycoris species recognized strength, but if they did, that would help.

"I will do what you ask me to do, I would not protest the idea of giving aid to someone who finds me." the lycoris responded as calmly as ever, her voice so much like a wise older woman. "I will not take part in combat unless it is self-defence, and I will not go anywhere at another's bidding."

"That is very reasonable. I greatly appreciate it." Armalita nodded, and turned to Gabriel. "What we need from you-"

"Your prokopian friend has a heavily damaged leg. The six tailed taikan has a heavy burn on her left side despite having resistance to fire. You yourself and the six-tailed taikan has light scratches of minute consequence caused by running through the undergrowth. Burns caused by a demon's fire, which is of no more consequence than normal flames. I can restore all of you to perfect condition."

Armalita looked rather miffed at being interrupted, but a lack of concern for what is rude or not combined with a capacity for impatience probably brought the lycoris to interrupt her. She nodded a little stiffly as the creature made one of those wicker balls levitate in front of her and split in half, revealing… Bottles. Bottles woven of grass and wood. I admired the craftsmanship as vines sprouted from the ground and wrapped around the necks of the bottles and lifted them out, growing and pulling them right to us at a level that we could comfortably grab them. Armalita and I took the bottles offered to us.

"What's this?" I asked.

"A potion, created from apples and the luminescent mushroom of underground chambers known rather simply as glowshrooms by your people. By far the simplest of potions, though like all magical potions, it requires a lycoris' magic to be crafted entirely."

I blinked. "Is a lycoris' magic different from a taikan's magic?" I asked.

"Entirely." was the reply. "My kind follows far different rules than you do in terms of magic. The earth grants my kind a different power than it grants you or the prokopians."

Gabriel looked up. "Like our ability to shift?"

"And your aptitude for technology, also granted to you by the earth." the lycoris told him. Now we were confused.

"How can a planet grant the ability to use technology? Or magic, for that matter?"

The lycoris had no visible reaction to the question. "Three powers emit from the core of this planet. I cannot see the source, for I can only see what the plants can see. What I call 'magic' is truly the power of life, used to create an effect that you would doubtless call magic because it appears like magic and defies the explanation of science as you know it. The taikans bear the force of magic, the capacity for forces that obey their own rules alone. The prokopians bear the force of technology, a power that creates it's own rules within the realm of the rules that already exist, and enhances them." she explained calmly and clearly. The only question that came to mind that I squashed was to clarify that she could **see** through the plants. That was heavily implied. Everything else sounded like the best explanation we were going to get, because she knew that it came from the core but couldn't see the exact source.

Also that her powers came from life, the taikans from magic, and the prokopians from technology. While the prokopian abilities now suddenly made **less** sense than before, because their transforming trick was not magical at all, but somehow born from the 'power of technology' even though most of them had no metal parts or any non-biological things in their bodies.

The 'potion' in my hand was pretty light, and I viewed it skeptically, and asked the question that now burned for lack of questions about anything else. "What does this potion do?"

"It heals wounds to a degree relative to how much you drink." the lycoris answered shortly.

"I will do this first." Armalita responded before I could open my mouth, drinking some of the liquid in the bottle. Now she'd probably done this in case it was poisonous or something, but she was done far before anybody else could possibly snag it from her. Cobalt stared at Armalita in horror, but Armalita just got on one knee and looked at her ankle.

"...Well?" Cobalt asked weakly.

"Not a scratch. The potion was successful." Armalita stated, standing up again. "It is safe to drink, Christy."

I nodded and drank from mine, feeling my burn start to fade as I did. I kept drinking it until the pain was totally gone, and I finally let the water fall from my burn.

Gabriel smiled as he looked at the two of us. "Alright, cool… That means that she can heal us all."

"You won't enjoy it." the lycoris warned as she was pulling a variety of extremely exotic looking materials and putting them in a wooden bowl she'd made actually grow out of the ground, with branches and everything. One of those things was one of the leaves of the featherdance plant. "Your bones have melted metal within, and the damage is too great for a simple healing potion to heal without consuming more than you can consume any liquid without getting sick. Thus, I am making you a potion that is meant to return someone to peak medical condition in every way. It will hurt. Your metal will heat up to bend itself into shape, our damaged bones will pull themselves together and your flesh will rapidly generate."

"Sounds like it's gonna suck. I wanna watch." Raia declared, her smirk appearing as she waited.

"Of course she does." Gabriel deadpanned as he put his aura flames around the potion that was halfway to him. The lycoris had caused the ingredients to glow and mesh together and change with her life powers. It became a glowing blue liquid that she put in a bottle and had been bringing to him. "Man, you are super efficient. How does your life powers work?"

"In a wide variety of ways." the lycoris responded simply. "I can manipulate living things and change them, as long as I do not attempt to break the law of conservation of mass. I can create mutations if I wish. Essentially, it is the manipulation of anything with life."

Gabriel looked up from his bottle at the foxy wolf. "Does that include us?" he asked.

She tilted her head slightly. "I choose not to afflict anything that has a brain." she responded, not exactly denying the possibility. "Drink. Get it over with."

Gabriel nodded. I brought him closer to me, holding his hand comfortingly and using my other hand on the top of his head, and he drank it. The effect took a moment to start, before Gabriel suddenly gritted his teeth and shouted in pain. I used my tails to keep him still and not a threat to himself while he struggled under the pain. I watched his foot heal of all its burns, but the real problem was underneath. If his metal was being melted back into the proper shape, there was no way he was going to be cured instantly.

I set a tail in his jaws to bite on so that he didn't do it to his tongue instead. It didn't really hurt, having it bit on. Then all I could do was watch and comfort him while the leg repaired itself properly. After two minutes, the process had been completed. And almost the instant the pain visibly stopped, Gabriel hopped to his feet, staring in amazement at what could possibly have been a permanent injury.

"Wow… Thank you, miss… Okay, I'm gonna find a name for you." Gabriel announced.

The lycoris looked over at Cobalt, then at Sandra and Crystal. "Your crystal golem has experienced some marks from the demons on her hide. Minute scratches from head on collisions, though those marks are few and far in between. The demons must have struck full force multiple times."

I blinked. "Crystal golem? Is that what her species is called?"

"Yes." the lycoris was already constructing some sort of paste, including a shiny blue flower. She then grew pine needles out of a chunk of wood I hadn't seen her grow out of the ground, but it looked like the lycoris had fused a twig, the extracted knot of a tree, and those pine needles to form a kind of brush. We watched the creature apply small amounts of the paste onto Crystal's body by holding the brush with a vine.

Man, all of this was just surreal, right? This cuddly looking pink foxy wolf was clearly a creature of much greater power than either taikans or prokopians. It was hard to understand though, like it's mind actually worked in a very different way. Like it had no innate need for companionship, or to be accepted, like she had implied.

And the fact that she was solving all of our problems at once, that too. I'd been so confused it really hadn't come to me yet, but… We had a chance now. A much greater chance of success. Now I needed to make sure we had whatever else we could use… When we have a miracle worker on our hands, we needed to come up with some miracles.

"Gee, we should set up regular appointments with you." Raina commented slyly. "If you can just fix up anything I do to Gabriel."

"It is unlikely that you will see me again in this very place. I grew these trees in order to seal away the sun from the featherdance, and induce growth in the featherdance with my abilities under the moon, which is what the featherdance requires to grow." she responded, probably going back to the 'I don't go anywhere at anyone's bidding' thing.

"But how does moonlight get through?" Cobalt asked from the back. Maybe he'd been trying to find a way to participate, I wasn't sure. Armalita was keeping a closer eye on him than I was.

"I move the tree tops out of the way." the lycoris responded as if that answer was obvious. Cobalt blushed somewhat and stopped talking.

There was some quiet yet again as we all let the lycoris' presence kind of sink in as we understood the situation more. I eventually opened my mouth to ask a question, only for Gabriel to beat me to it.

"Lycoris… Are you gonna leave soon?"

"No, I will remain overnight to oversee the further growth of this featherdance to balance out the amount that I have taken for my stores and create a surplus in case some is taken by a prokopian or taikan between now and my next visit when I begin to run low on featherdance."

Gabriel nodded. "So you'll be around when we wake up too, if we have any more questions?"

"Yes."

Gabriel nodded slowly. "We're all pretty tired, but… I want to know if you have some way to defeat Boreas without killing him, but also safely removing him from power…"

There it was. The big question. Miracle time, I hoped. Gabriel needed something like this, and even if it made Malvolio's death sting even more because of this timing, we could maybe safely dispose of Boreas without killing him.

"There are a few ways that I can manage, but all of them are immensely complicated forms of 'magic'. I can put together all the options for you, but it will take a full day."

We all winced. Could we afford that kind of time? I turned to Gabriel to ask, but his expression was pure determination. Nothing would stop him from getting out of this fight with his hands clean. The same with me, really… I just didn't want to think about the consequences if we were too late.

"Done." Gabriel declared strongly. "We'll stay here for the time being."

Armalita met his eyes, and then Armalita nodded slowly, as if delegating the decision-making process to Gabriel now. It was time to stop moving…

I stumbled a bit, and Gabriel caught me. Since when was I exhausted?

"You have been traveling out of necessity." the lycoris said, making me look up at her again. Her tail swished around her, thus uncoiling itself, and kind of floated behind the being as she walked out of the center of the room, perhaps because Crystal was walking in. The featherdance suddenly shifted and started to move away from the crystal golem and allow Crystal a path to follow without trampling the important plant.

Armalita stepped up to the now still crystal golem. "Sandra, please come down." she turned then to the lycoris while her sister giggled, muttering a slurred 'okay', and dropped down several feet from Armalita. "Lycoris, is there a danger to you if my sister's drunkard magic comes in contact with you?"

"Yes." came the short reply. "I am capable of creating a magic suppression potion, but the most potent only lasts about thirty minutes."

Armalita stilled. She probably hadn't even thought about what Sandra would be like without being constantly drunk. I opened my mouth, but she held her hand out towards me to quiet me. "I'm rather apprehensive of what Sandra will be like if she does manage to recover from being drunk. As far as I know, she could be anything from a great intellectual to the equivalent of a newborn. I'm not sure I'm ready to know what's underneath her usual demeanor. This version of her **is** Sandra. It will be completely foreign to me and to her if she changed. Give me some time to decide whether to try or not."

Her honesty and logic was appreciated, and I nodded at her request while Sandra started to wander. Like a walking mine, that's how much we avoided her. Luckily, she seemed more keen to hug Crystal's legs and chest than she was spontaneously hugging us. Her pet, for her part, slowly laid down and started to relax.

And as Armalita sank to the floor with crossed legs, silence dominated the grotto once again. The lycoris had already gotten to work. Did she need sleep? What did she need? What does someone need when they don't need companionship or courtesy?

I felt Gabriel's arms around me from behind. His human arms, as he'd safely shifted now that he was okay. "You okay?" he asked me. "You've been lost in thought for a while now."

I smiled as I automatically turned my head up, looking back and to the right to find his eyes real close to mine. "Yeah… Just, It's hard to even comprehend how the lycoris works. And everything's been fixed up within a few minutes… All of the short-term problems at least… Now that we have some time to really think, I…"

"We're so used to moving and being in danger and having a goal, but now we have to put that off for a day. What do we do with nothing to do?" Gabriel responded, shifting in place and then sharing a kiss with me. Maybe he felt more comfortable muzzle to muzzle.

It didn't make it any less comfortable to kiss him back. I still didn't know what his human lips felt like. Maybe someday.

"I can think of a few things." I said. "Like cuddling, sleeping… We'd need our bedroom back for anything closer."

I was rewarded by his blush when I said that, I laughed to show I was joking and scratched behind one of his ears. I continued: "Nah, I'm not comfortable with that idea yet. Maybe someday."

Gabriel raised his head, seemingly in thought. "So if we're sharing a bedroom… Cobalt and Armalita can get the other one… Where's Raina gonna sleep?"

Her voice cropped up behind us. "Once all this war stuff is over, I guess I'll just have them bring my stuff from my room there." she responded, out of my line of vision because Gabriel was in my way.

"Are you painting?" I asked, keeping up my smile.

"Yep." came the deadpan reply, as if she was telling me off for asking a question with such an obvious answer.

Gabriel let me go as I turned and stood up, starting to walk over to her. She sat on the ground with her small project, and she was facing me, meaning I couldn't see what she was working on. I steeled myself and walked right by her on my way past, as if to show I wasn't afraid she would hurt me. She did, a little bit, delivering a minor scratch onto my ankle as I passed absently while I ignored the sting and looked at what she was doing. Red and black again, as usual, this one seemed to be some sort of painting of a night sky? I didn't think so. The paint that made the initial work uniformly half red and half black had dried quite some time ago. Raina was painting over it with the next layer, whichever layer she was on.

"What is it?"

"A face." was the reply. I knelt down behind her left shoulder to get a closer look. It wasn't done enough to resemble a face upon close inspection of the visible layers of paint, but it did look like something was popping out of it.

"Who's face?"

"Who cares?"

I guessed that meant she was done answering questions. I grimaced, but nodded and stood, starting to give her space.

Meanwhile, Gabriel had gone over to the lycoris and had produced the golden switch. Oh yeah, that was a thing. Maybe the lycoris had a miraculous answer to that as well. "Excuse me, uh… Miss Lycoris." Gabriel started awkwardly. "I was wondering if you could tell us what this was."

She looked at it, frowning slightly. "I had seen you sauntering about with the switch, but I can feel its energy much easier this close. It reeks of a kind of magic completely foreign, and I cannot determine its origin or what it does" she told him. So much for that.

Gabriel flipped the switch.

* * *

 **Click!**

* * *

The lycoris' expression immediately shifted as she looked between Christy and I, before settling back on the device. "The impulse is so faint that I had to be there in person to feel its full extent." she said while I smiled. Answers! Beautiful answers!

"What's it do?"

"I'm unsure as to its exact function, it hasn't been made entirely clear." she told me, crushing my hopes like tinfoil. "But when the switch is flipped, an energy transfer is made between you and your mate." she continued. Hopes reestablished!

"What kind of transfer?" I asked. Or maybe I demanded. I was getting excited. I'm so glad the lycoris didn't give a damn about politeness.

"It is not entirely clear." Tinfoil crushed.

"Oh." I muttered.

"The nature of the magic is unlike that of the taikans." she continued. "I would venture to say it is actually absurd. It follows no patterns, no rules. It does what it does because it does. That being said, what is actually happening is beyond me."

I handled the thing with care as I raised it to look at it closely. Then I sweatdropped. "Christy, maybe we should have guessed that it had something to do with us. The switch either points towards 'G' or 'C'." I told her, feeling kind of embarrassed.

She got me immediately, but comfortingly brushed a few tails along my arm. "We couldn't have had any idea why that was a thing. And we still don't know what it does, just that it switches something between you and me." she reasoned.

As she approached, her tails that were making contact with me shortening as they did, I put an arm around her and smiled to show my thanks. "Maybe it doesn't really matter what it does." I proposed quietly. "It's not affected our personalities and lives at all, it's not changed us. It's some valuable trinket with a switch that you got as a present."

"Yeah, a creepy present!" she agreed. "Seriously, I should really have asked who was supplying me with stuff."

I blinked. "Maybe I could ask my lookalike…" I thought aloud, glancing about at everyone in the glow of the featherdance plant.

"That sounds like a decent plan." Christy answered as we both faintly registered the lycoris looking at us. I didn't want to assume she didn't know, so I figured I'd wait until she asked, if she did.

She didn't, instead going back to her business. Man, I could **not** understand that foxy-wolf thing.

Christy gave me one more quick kiss and turned, walking towards Armalita, who noticed her presence immediately, and both began whispering. Figuring I shouldn't leave Cobalt alone, I stepped over to him to fill the gap. He was resting, sitting on the dirt and leaning on one of Crystal's huge hindquarters, facing the featherdance near the other end of the grotto.

He noticed me, more with his hearing than his eyes. "Gabriel?" he asked as I sat down next to him.

"Hey." I greeted him in as friendly a way as I could. He gave a small smile, but evidently couldn't come up with a conversation topic. He stayed quiet, and I did too. He just needed to not be alone, that was all.

Armalita probably knew how to speak to him better than I did. Though I didn't know how much harder it was for Cobalt when the girl he fancied, who knew he fancied her, was talking to him.

"Getting hungry?" I asked him, using my aura flames, picking up one of the fruits in the baskets that had been set down near the entrance and brought it up to him, splitting it in half and taking a half for myself.

He gave a small, shy smile. "Thanks." he responded, gingerly taking the fruit half from my flames and taking a small bite. "We don't even know what these are…"

"Carta fruit." came the lycoris' explanation with no discernable tone.

He paused, awkwardly nodding his thanks at the lycoris, and taking a bigger bite.

"Are you all right?" I asked him.

He glanced at the lycoris again. "She just kind of scares me, like…" he looked down. "Like just about everything else does. I'm always afraid, afraid of change, afraid of…"

He didn't continue, and it brought me to rest my hand on his arm (after I'd shifted) and give him a smile. "Hey, when you're ready to talk about your fears, I'm more than willing to listen. Armalita will, too. So will Christy, if you want." I offered.

He nodded his thanks again and fell silent again. A minute or so after I'd finished my half of the fruit, he quietly spoke up: "The lycoris seems… Nice, but she also is… I dunno. It's like if our safety threatened her existence, she'd kill us." he whispered worriedly.

To my credit, I didn't even consider it. "The lycoris has compassion." I pointed out. "She can make her own opinions and stuff. And even if she doesn't want to get directly involved, she sees us, a bunch of people who need help and want to stop all the violence, and she decides to heal us up. I feel safe here."

Cobalt made eye contact with me. "You do?" he asked, before looking away again. I waited while he clearly collected his thoughts, until… "I mean… Your life's been in danger for… A long time, right? How can you feel safe anywhere?"

If he was looking for an expression of doubt on my face, all he got was my smile.

"I've got all of you guys, Cobalt." I told him. "Christy, Armalita, you, Crystal, even Raina. All of you guys watch my back while I help watch everyone else's back. That's why I feel safe."

"M-me?" he asked. "But I can't fight, or…"

"You hit like a truck, man." I chuckled, rubbing my stomach where he'd punched me long before, despite the feeling having been completely gone for a long time. "Nobody's gonna throw you into a fight unless you want to fight, but if you get attacked, your fur and skin's literally made of cobalt, so you're set for defense, and you can defend yourself great in a pinch."

"You said that before…" he muttered, looking at his hand. "Do I really hit that hard?"

I nodded. "It's probably because your entire body, or most of it at least, is made of metal. Kind of like Crystal here." I knocked my knuckles on her hide behind us to emphasize my point. "You can move dense metal at the speed of a normal person, and because your muscles are metal, and they can move like flesh, again like Crystal, so it's like you're slamming a steel pole into somebody's gut with all your might, except it's got the acceleration of your arm when you're not holding anything. So the result is a powerful hit."

My explanation seemed to satisfy the guy, and he nodded, quietly inspecting his arm.

"I've got metal organs that for some reason work like normal ones…" he muttered. "I guess my subspecies has some sort of innate magic capability to do it."

"Good thing too, otherwise it'd be hard to eat." I joked, eliciting a small smile from my friend. The pure blue taikan, well, I guess his eyes have some white between his irises and his eyelids, but whatever, fell into a more comfortable silence for a while as I diverted my attention to Christy once more.

She and Armalita had stopped speaking by now, and Armalita was minding her own business. Cobalt glanced from her to me and back again.

"...I…" he started hesitantly. "Armalita, she… Well, I kind of just… Watched her all the time, like… Like a creep, or a… Well…"

I winced, but hid the expression from Cobalt. "I think any guy who fancied her would keep their distance. She's scary. And not the sort of scary that Raina is." I said. "Besides, you were kept in that observation room… Pretty much the entire time that you remember, and had a chunk of your life taken from your memories. Both of those leave you pretty unequipped to deal with this kind of thing."

He looked down, and I gripped his arm, bringing him to meet my eyes. "But nobody ever accomplishes anything without effort." I advised. "You will never know whether Armalita fancies you or not if you don't look her in the eye and ask. Trust me. When you're ready, you should look her in the eye and tell her you like her."

"But she knows already." he argued.

"But it will prompt her to give you the same courtesy." I reminded him. "Tell her how you feel, and as honest as she is, she'll tell you how she feels."

"What if she… Doesn't like me back?"

I paused. "Then… I guess you move on. And someday you'll find someone else that you like in that kind of way. People always say 'no, she's the one', and you know what? It doesn't have to work that way. There isn't anything like 'soulmates' or whatever."

Another silence fell between us as he looked over at Armalita again. "But… I'm mentally way younger than her." he added. This was a bit more difficult to tackle…

"Physically, you're not." I told him. "You've got these annoying little things called hormones affecting you **right now**. As far as your body's concerned, it's perfectly okay for you to be in a relationship with someone who's physically your age."

Now he came up with an argument right away. "But won't that push her away?"

"Maybe, maybe not." I conceded. "But that's life. You won't know until you try."

Then I poked him in the chest lightly, giving him a serious look. "But only when **you're** ready. Don't let me push you into it. This is your choice." I told him.

I pulled away from him and leaned against Crystal once more, looking at the light from the featherdance plant and letting him think. The light blue light from the crystal golem at our backs and the ever so slightly darker blue glow of the featherdance together illuminated the grotto quite nicely. Since most of us were blue, we fit right in. Sandra was totally relaxing against Crystal from above, but only she made a stark contrast. Even Raina's fur looked blue in the light.

After a while, Cobalt steeled (or maybe he cobalted? Nah, I don't think that's a word) himself and pushed himself up, starting to walk over to Armalita while I closed my eyes and activated my aura sense, keeping an 'eye' on them.

"Armalita, can… Can I talk to you?"

"Of course." Armalita stood at attention. "What do you need?"

"So… You probably already know that when we lived at the compound, I couldn't stop watching you…" he started awkwardly, his expression reading that he wished he'd done something different to start off.

"I did." Armalita looked amused. That was… Actually probably a great reaction.

"O-okay… But… I never outright told you how I felt." he continued, tightening his lips.

She waited, meeting his eyes while he tried to meet hers.

The cobaltum taikan swallowed as he put his words together in his head. "I… I couldn't help but think that you were always beautiful and strong, physically, and emotionally… And you never faltered in front of everyone, even when you got news that someone you knew wouldn't be coming back. I… I always admired you and how you didn't hesitate to say how you felt, but never let it get in the way of your work… And… I've… I know it must be weird because I've only got a few years of memory, but… IhavefeelingsforyouArmalita!"

Armalita gave him a soft smile and a nod. Of course, she already knew that. But now we had to see what she would choose. I was proud that Cobalt had up and taken the risk, perhaps in part due to being with Armalita in the flesh, or fur, and Armalita doing her best to help him build up confidence in the past few days.

Armalita took a scarily long time to decide. Scary for Cobalt at least. He might have been biting his nails off if this got any tenser.

"...Cobalt, you proved something to me during the time I knew you. Being thrown into a full-time job after recently losing your memories taught you fear of the unknown and with nobody to help you, you began to feel helpless. But even before we departed, you showed that deep down you had a brave heart. After all, when Gabriel did arrive, you brought yourself to fight him, despite being afraid."

Cobalt couldn't speak, working his jaw as he tried to find words to respond while Armalita continued: "It is my belief that you did not lose absolutely everything when your memory was taken. It is also my belief that with the right push, you could be as strong as any of us. I take great enjoyment in the conversations we have, because it's clear how hard you're trying."

Cobalt made a questioning noise at Armalita, wanting to know what her decision was. She nodded and looked him in the eyes. Ever the straightforward one, she faced him. "Cobalt, I won't deny that you have all the qualities of someone I could love. I, however, am a warrior first in mind. Once we accomplish peace, it is my belief that I will be ready to fall in love someday. For now, know that while I'm not ready for a relationship at this time, you will be on my mind when I am."

She gave his shoulder a reassuring pat and took a step back, before walking to our stash of fruit and picking out one, purposely distracting herself to give Cobalt some space while he absorbed the information he'd received.

"...Th-thanks for being so honest with me." Cobalt stuttered out. "I really, um… Appreciate it."

She nodded, smiled at him, and rested her hand on his shoulder before walking around him and approaching Crystal and thus me, beginning a conversation with Sandra.

Cobalt took another fruit and then went on to sit my himself, leaving Armalita closer to me. "About Sandra." I began, and I swear I startled her the slightest bit. "I don't usually see her acting any differently no matter what happens. Why do you think that is?"

My curiosity was met with a halfhearted expression. "My sister has experienced the sensation of being heavily drunk her entire life. Most people are fully developed beings with experiences untainted by such a mental affliction. But Sandra is different, much more static. I cannot tell you whether she experiences reality as if it were a dream of some kind or if she just hardly notices time passing. As far as I can gather, without real experience, her personality is rather… Static, even with the unpredictable nature of being drunk."

I put my mind to it, and come to think of it, Sandra's behavior really wasn't all too erratic. She was consistently hyperactive and impulsive, but she charged head first into things, and if there was some sort of physical competition, she went for it. I really kind of stopped listening to her when we got out of the compound. She was here because Armalita wanted to protect her, and as far as I could tell, that was about it. Only when she did something that made herself known did we really pay attention to her.

Great. Now I felt bad. And I didn't even know if I should or not. Because one thing's for sure, Sandra doesn't notice. Even with Armalita holding a conversation with her right this second, I was only really listening to Armalita's half of the conversation, even though Sandra was definitely speaking. She'd spoken quite a bit when I talked to her in the bar, when I really had needed to.

So what was it? Did Sandra need us to be there for her or not? I genuinely couldn't tell. She was powerful enough to dislocate my arm, seemingly without any effort on her part. She's apparently just cognizant enough to recall and give information, and she does have a super powerful crystal dog thing.

Speaking of Crystal, what about Sandra made Crystal so likely to listen to her? If Crystal had a method of communication, it wasn't one we could understand. There was no way to tell the level of intelligence the creature had. Was it a pack animal, and Sandra was the one it was protecting like she was a fragile, sick puppy? Or was it intelligent, and saw Sandra as the one most in need of assistance through life in general? Either way, it obeyed commands like a dog.

Oh wait.

"Uh, lycoris?"

"Yes?" she asked. The lycoris had plants growing all around her, bearing various leaves and fruits of some description. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but I guess whatever she needs to do for her potion shenanigans, I should let her do. Thankfully, multitasking seemed to be a **major** skill of hers.

"Crystal here… How smart is she?" I asked.

The lycoris looked over at Crystal, analyzing her with her eyes. "Crystal golems live for an incredibly long time. Judging from how I have seen them over the course of this planet's existence, it is my understanding that they slowly grow more intelligent over time, learning very slowly, but never forgetting. It could be hundreds of thousands of years before the golem could warrant the label of 'sentient'. In the meantime, at the moment, it seems to have the mental capacity of a tamed dog. A lazy one."

I couldn't help but chuckle at what I wasn't sure was a joke or not. "She is super lazy, that's for sure…" I agreed, looking up at Crystal and finding her spotlights pointed at me as she'd turned to look at me after my laughing outburst. "I guess she's just very attached to Sandra then."

"It would seem so." Came the rather unconcerned, dare I say uncaring response. The lycoris had answered my questions and gotten right back to work.

Wait a second.

"How old are you again?" I asked.

"I do not count." she replied. "But I came into existence when plant life had grown over enough of the surface. I am of a great age, but was born long after the dawn of the planet."

I scratched my head. "So the more life there is on the planet, the more lycorises… Lycorises, Lycorisi? Um… Anyways, the more life there is, the more lycorises there are?"

"Correct."

I nodded and sat down. I had no more questions. Then Christy sat down besides me, and all was quiet again with the exception of Sandra's giggling.

We leaned against each other as we submitted to waiting. We could wait… It was worth one day if we had a way to handle this fight without killing Boreas.

We were on the right path. Even if everything wasn't absolutely peachy, we were all going to get out of this okay.

I had to believe that. I just had to.


End file.
